search marketing blog: ambergreen

How much does the traffic from social networks cost? Setting up a blog is a long term commitment and often requires deep engagement in the community, i.e. not only adding content but also responding on existing content and answering questions. This is usually the barrier that stop most companies investing in social media optimisation. The large number of different communities with different demographics does not make this investment cheaper. Whatever the barriers are new corporate blogs are created and they often live until the initial enthusiasm wears off. So is it possible to increase traffic to your blog from social networking websites? How to maintain the traffic and enthusiasm as well?

We’ve decided to perform an experiment in order to measure the potential of traffic from social networking websites.

SMO campaign Step by Step guide

In our research, we’ve taken the following steps.

Step 1: On 14th June 2007 we’ve created a Blogger account and the Uncontrolled experiments blog was born. We’ve also set up a Google Analytics account to measure the effects of our social networking campaign.

Step 2: The same day we’ve added a blog post “The Four Best Ways To Sleep At Work“

Step 3: We’ve submitted the blog post to the following social networking/bookmarking websites.

• Digg.com
• Netscape.com
• Reddit.com
• Del.icio.us
• Stumbleupon.com
• Google.com/Bookmarks
• Myweb2.search.yahoo.com
• Technorati.com
• Indianpad.com
• Socialogs.com
• Furl.net
• Diigo.com
• Wirefan.com
• Bibsonomy.org
• Looklater.com
• Blinklist.com
• Blogmemes.net
• Bluedot.us
• Myjeeves.ask.com
• Backflip.com
• Netvouz.com
• Folkd.com
• Blinkbits.com
• Bmaccess.net
• Shadows.com
• Ma.gnolia.com
• Plugim.com
• scoreguru.com
• Bestofindya.com
• Linkagogo.com
• Dotnetkicks.com
• Mister-wong.de

Step 4: Added a question on Yahoo! Answers with a link to the blog post

Measuring the SMO campaign effects

Day 3: Although it wasn’t the aim of our experiment on the Day 3 we’ve noticed that the page has been indexed by Google are ranks for a targeted search query.

Day 4 & Day 5: 73 visitors, most referrers from Yahoo! answers, however, the traffic still hasn’t peaked.

Day 6: On the 6th day of the experiment we’ve noticed a considerable increase in traffic, in total 15,370 users visited the page. We’ve also found that pages related to our content now take most of the space in SERPs when searching Google for “ways to sleep at work”.

Day 7: On day 7 an avalanche of traffic and traffic sources has started. We’ve noted an increase in visits from domains such as mail.google.com, webmail.aol.com and mail.yahoo.com, which suggests that the story has not only travelled across social networking websites but also email accounts. The total number of visitors on Day 7 was 20,386.

SMO campaign summary

Conclusion

1. We’ve proved that traffic from an SMO campaign doesn’t have to be expensive

2. It’s unpredictable and we can’t forecast traffic volumes

3. Requires unique, creative content and a catchy heading

4. Only effective if it targets the right audience. We’ve noted very different traffic volumes from different social networking sites, which suggest that the content and message has to be specific to a particular community.

With its universal search, Google is now going to offer results in web search that integrate results from all of their vertical search properties, such as image, video, maps, local, blogs, etc. The video results will include results from third party video sites like Metacafe, and Google’s own You Tube and Google Video.

With universal search, Google are attempting to break down the walls that traditionally separated various search properties and integrate the vast amounts of information available into one simple set of search results. After all, search doesn’t work in a vacuum, it never has and it never will.

In addition, they have rolled out a few new navigation elements and experimental features to assist users better navigate the site and find the information they’re looking for. These include contextual navigation links above the search results that help users “drill down” to specific types of information. Also, in terms of integration and navigation, Google have also introduced a new universal navigation bar at the top of all Google web pages to provide easier navigation to your favorite Google products, such as Gmail. I suppose, in time, user stats will determine if this was a good idea or not.

While this weeks releases are big steps in making the world’s information more easily accessible, these are just the beginning steps toward the universal search vision.

If ever there was time for search marketing agencies like Ambergreen to promote the benefits of full service search marketing, it is now. Companies again have a chance to own full organic visibility using search results, maps, books, blogs, images, videos, news releases, submitted articles and wikis. Alternatively, those big brands that don’t cover all the bases have left themselves in a precarious situation where someone elses video of your company, or a competitors blog on your services have the potential of taking a front page place on Google’s main results page. Being found for a competitors brand name can be a major advantage, over the next few months, this will be strategically beneficial for savvy marketers to take advantage of.

Ok, its been a while since Ambergreen updated the search marketing blog. From now on we will look at a few big features that happened in the land of search marketing and brand promotion within the month as opposed to writing on 3 or 4 features a week.

With the plethora of self opinionated, egotistical trash that seems to be pushed through search blogs these days, we felt we weren’t going to go through the motions like every one else … whats the point anyway? We don’t need our ego’s stroked on a daily basis like many of the old guard who thrive on their blogging coverage and countless, instantly forgettable appearances at a Search Engine Strategies shows.