MTV Switch: Traffic Surge
Friday, June 06, 2008
Roughly two weeks ago, the MTV Switch blog received an upswing in traffic of over five hundred unique visitors in one day. This milestone--unprecedented in the history of the blog--simultaneously delivered a higher average of visitors per day.
The way we were able to produce this tremendous boost in traffic was through a deft mixture of Stumbling links. By using StumbleUpon, we could show other people on the Internet items of interest to them, and they, in turn, stumbled these links so that other people could see them as well. In this way, social bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon present newer, faster, and pyramid-like forms of outreach on the Internet. Because of this, we are reaching new stages in the web, where simple recommendations produce more traffic by tapping into what brings people to web sites in the first place: unbridled curiosity.
MTV: Gaining Blog Exposure
Monday, June 02, 2008
You created a blog, are posting content on it regularly, and sit patiently waiting for traffic to appear. Sometimes it does--content is king after all--and sometimes it doesn’t. For the MTV project, we’ve been getting a steady flow of traffic each day: but it’s fairly modest. Much of that likely has to do with the fact that it’s a new blog without many links. So what’s a blogger to do? Answer: Go on the hunt for links.
We started informing people of our existence, focusing on other environmental bloggers. Many of them helped us out and shared the blog with their audience. Each link helps, and you can see that in the search numbers. So far we have gotten links from a number of influential environmental blogs. However, I think we need to work on something timely for the blog to give us that extra reason for the rest of the eco-friendly bloggers out there to give us a shout out.
On the print media side, we just got a great quote in the New Media Age magazine.
MTV: StumbleUpon and Social Blogging
Friday, May 30, 2008
Our social media expert here at Connors has been working on getting the word out about the MTV SWITCH blog. One of the techniques being used to draw in more traffic has been submitting particularly noteworthy blog entries to StumbleUpon. The result has been impressive: When Stumbled, traffic to the blog jumps ten fold for a day or two before the flood of visitors subsides.
In the last 30 days, StumbleUpon has brought in more traffic than the main MTV SWITCH portal. StumbleUpon has become our number one referrer and brings many new visitors to the blog’s most entertaining and interesting posts.
The big challenge here is to capitalize on this exposure and put up some interesting posts, hopefully getting visitors to bookmark it and return. One would think that MTV, being the giant, recognizable brand that it is, would be sending the blog most of its traffic, when in fact more of it has been coming from StumbleUpon. It just goes to show you that social bookmarking sites are powerful tools when used correctly.
MTV: SWITCH Blog
Friday, May 23, 2008
Connors has been working on a blog project with MTV for a few months now. The project is a campaign the music television giant has launched called MTV SWITCH, which promotes a green lifestyle and presents a cool image of how to fight global warming. MTV has teamed up with ad agencies to create commercials and PSAs about climate change that they have been airing on their international channels. They have also tapped a company to create the main MTV SWITCH website. And we created the blog that accompanies their efforts. It’s an important topic, a great name behind it, and there’s a lot to write about.
So what’s been happening? The first posts went up in late December and since then we’ve been populating the site with content. The search traffic is coming in and that means we can use the HitTail suggestions to supply ideas for additional posts. So far we’re at just about a hundred unique visitors a day. It’s a beginning, and we expect the numbers to go nowhere but up.
As a brand new blog in the crowded “green” space, we are working to separate ourselves from other environmental sites by adding an MTV edge.Labels: blog, Connors Communications, HitTail, MTV Switch, music industry, politics, seo
What Sort of Social Media Services Should An Online Marketer Offer Clients?
Monday, March 03, 2008
Here are the services an online marketing company can (or should) offer clients:
- Blogging: Providing blog content, including content that has a "real" voice and is calculated to drive traffic/comments/interaction. Metrics to measure the effectiveness of this include # of comments, traffic, link-tos, and Technorati ratings.
- Blogger Outreach: This involves first creating contact lists carefully targeted to the client in question – and having the ability to identify the influential bloggers within a particular niche. Then the bloggers are contacted regarding the client story in question. This is similar to traditional PR, but involves a far more personal hand, and the ability to network and create relationships online. Traditional press releases do not work in this outreach – they must be short, friendly letters. Metrics for this include hits and link-backs to your site.
- Forum Outreach: Similar to blogger outreach. Part of this is identifying in advance what forums might be useful to the client and developing a relationship with them BEFORE making the "pitch" on the site (or else you are labeled a spammer).
- Social Networking Sites: The creating/maintenance of MySpace and/or Facebook accounts for the client, including the creation of Groups, Friending, sending out bulletins, etc. In addition to Facebook & MySpace there are many other social networking sites to focus on, both broad-based (like Bebo) or specialized (depending on client’s needs). Part of offering this service is the ability to tell clients what specific sites will be best for them demographically, and keeping up with trends. Metrics for this would be page hits, increase of hits on referenced URL, number of "friends" and comments.
- Podcast & YouTube: Some clients will be particularly suited for these forms of viral marketing. Marketers should offer very basic services in making simple podcasts & videos with the goal of going "viral" within the social networks. There is also a social networking component to these podcast and YouTube communities that have to be maintained and "worked." Metrics for this would be hits, # of downloads, link-tos from other sites, and increase of hits on referenced URL.
- Social Bookmarking: Interfacing between client blogger and bookmarker to shape content most likely to be bookmarked. Metrics include # of "Diggs" or "stumbles" a bookmarked story gets, and corresponding hit spike on referenced URL.
Within all of this is the need to provide the client a list of metrics to demonstrate that the social networking is creating a result. Companies are more likely, even in the case of budget cuts to their overall online marketing plan, to keep a budget for social networking because it is relatively inexpensive – but because the technology is so new, they want to see tangible results. It will be necessary, then, for a shop to create their own methodology and protocol for collecting data for metrics and presenting them in a convenient and comprehensive manner for the client.Labels: blogger, buzz, Facebook, Myspace, new media, social media, social networking, Stumbleupon, video, Web 2.0, Youtube
Quality SEO
Thursday, February 14, 2008
In addition to what my colleague, Adam Edwards, writes below on the ROI of SEO, I would like to present an example that illustrates that it is not just important to invest in SEO, but to invest in quality SEO.
GoCompare.com, a UK site that allows users to compare car insurance rates, used to rank number one on Google for the coveted term: "car insurance". What this translated to was that 17.49% of people searching on that term would visit the site. As you can imagine, this amounts to a huge number of people as "car insurance" is a very popular search term.
Not surprisingly, this term was responsible for most of the traffic to GoCompare.com. Even more so than its actual name spaced out: "Go Compare".
At the end of the week of January 28th, GoCompare.com lost its coveted number one ranking because Google uncovered dubious inbound linking to the site. Apparently, GoCompare.com had invested a bit too much in the pay-per-blog "methodology", which provides links to a site (which helps with optimization) for a fee.
So, how did GoCompare.com rank after it was found out? From number one, it plummeted to the obscurity of the seventh Google search page. Needless to say, the results were detrimental.
Just 2.31% of people searching on "car insurance" went to the site the following week. This equaled to an 87% decrease in traffic! The part that probably hurt the most was the gains made by GoCompare.com's competitors, the search traffic for which increased as much as 77% in the aftermath.
Google rightly decided to hone in on the practice of paying for inbound links as it falsely portrays a sense of authority. Your site is not ranking highly on a term because you offer quality data on the particular topic, but because you paid some key blogs and other sites to link to you.
So beware! Many SEO firms that claim to shoot your site right to the top of your most important search terms are probably using these unethical practices, to which Google is catching up.
Quality SEO, just like anything else that's worthwhile, takes time. At Connors, for instance, we build your site content out so that it is SEO friendly and worthy of a searcher's attention.
Our technique does not just ensure success in the relative near future, but also for years to come. Please refer to Adam's eloquent metaphor below to get a better idea of this important difference.Labels: Connors Communications, optimization, seo, Web 2.0
PPC Is Not an Investment
There's a great article by Tameka Kee in MediaPost today about SEO providing great ROI and outperforming other marketing initiatives. It looks like the rest of the industry is finally catching on! However, what worries me is the idea that some marketers believe pay-per-click (PPC) is an investment. Now don't get me wrong; PPC is a fine business. Connors helped launch the entire industry with its PR work on Overture, after all. Yet let's be clear in that PPC is advertising. And once you stop paying, its benefits disappear. It may be a good buy with consistently high ROI that continues to bring in search traffic and provide leads, but it is not an investment. PPC is kind of like renting an apartment. You can sign a lease and move in quickly. Sometimes you can even get a month-to-month agreement. If you have any problems, you can talk to the super and (hopefully) he'll fix your place. But you are not gaining any equity. Should your landlord decide to sell the building or raise rent dramatically, you'll be stuck without a place to live. In the long term, isn't it better to buy or build your own house? SEO, on the other hand, provides compounding returns. You can build your house (or site) and then make improvements or additions. Yes, some patience and hard work is involved but don't worry, as you can still hire contractors like us to help. It will all be worthwhile when your property value (or PageRank) goes up. Then, should you choose, you can sell at a profit. There is nothing wrong with renting some keywords with PPC as long as you make sure you are saving enough to invest in your own SEO house. Labels: advertising, PageRank, PPC, ROI, seo
Surprising Data On Natural Born Clickers
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Here’s an interesting study on Natural Born Clickers by Starcom, Tacoda & Hitwise (via SEOmoz blog). Natural Born Clickers -- or NBCs -- click on online advertising the most, and what the data shows about them is surprising. Heavy clickers: Account for 50% of all display ad clicks, but only 6% of the total online population. Skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44. Skew towards households with an income under $40,000. Spend 4 times more online than “normal” clickers – but their spending does not proportionately reflect this increased usage. Are more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career service sites.
Will this study have a negative impact on the paid display ad industry? Will more targeted methods of attracting customers like organic SEO get a boost? Only time will tell – but it’s certainly food for thought. Labels: advertising, Adwords, seo
 |
