Comments on: Matching Revenue Streams to Traffic Sources

By: Dispelling 4 Myths about Social Traffic « The Social Scene

Dispelling 4 Myths about Social Traffic « The Social Scene — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:00:47 +0000

[...] as disloyal and fickle, disinterested in consumer activity, and either hostile to advertising�or so damn savvy they’re immune to it.��Don’t be taken in by the allure of social media,�these SEO advocates warn,�or [...]

By: Why Noobs Don’t Make Money Online | Blog 4 To

Why Noobs Don’t Make Money Online | Blog 4 To — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:32:48 +0000

[...] is a post she wrote recently Matching Revenue Streams to Traffic Sources She talks about Search Engine traffic “SE traffic is more receptive to on-page advertising [...]

By: Ned Carey

Ned Carey — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:14:52 +0000

Wow I am more impressed as I read more of your site. This is a unique way of looking at things that I haven’t seen talked about on other MMO sites.

Perhaps you’ve written about this elsewhere. Your post makes me realize that type of traffic you aim for would depend on your goals for the site. Which leads me to comment on Leo’s comment.

@Leo wrote
>Traffic for traffic�s sake is just nothing more than an ego trip�

It sure can be but it depends on the purpose of your site. My site is to build my personal brand and reputation as a expert in my field. It is also to build my list of contacts. So for me it’s a numbers game; more traffic more recognition and a bigger list. (a bigger ego is a side benefit )

@ The Troll
>not sure what I can give away for free

That’s easy, sign up to my feed or e-mail list and get:
The first chapter of my book for free.
Or, get my report on the history of humor
Or, get my free report on how to tell jokes
or, get a coupon to buy my book at 10% off\
Or, . . .

Ned Careys last blog post..Great Marketing With a Sense of Humor!

By: Caroline Middlebrook

Caroline Middlebrook — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:25:30 +0000

@Y, I could experiment with those systems but I suspect that I would see the same results as with my AdSense experiment. At the end of the day I am not a huge fan of plastering ads all over my site so I’m only going to do it if the revenue is significant, not just a few bucks.

By: Y. Steven

Y. Steven — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:23:59 +0000

Cool tips i used to get traffic from Search engine and social traffic but never really thought that in social traffic can bring you referral traffic as well. I would like to recommend to use adword, adbrite and any other related sites that require you to pay a single dollar or more to advertise your site and get more traffic from it. Just get your blog more exposed Y. Stevens last blog post..Top 6 Reasons Why You Should Use Wordpress

By: Robby G

Robby G — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:53:10 +0000

I need to focus more on search engine visitors and SEO for my blog. My free ebook that I offer helps see my visitors return.

Robby Gs last blog post..Top 5 Things To Do for Valentine�s Day

By: The Troll

The Troll — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 15:37:27 +0000

I have a humor blog and not sure what I can give away for free. I have books I'm selling but it could be an expensive endeavor to send a free book to everyone that registers for the blog. Also not sure if people want to give their "physical" address to get a book sent to them. The Trolls last blog post..50 traffic violations in one day. Got GEICO?

By: Reyn Aria

Reyn Aria — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 13:31:16 +0000

Great idea. I like the tip about offering free gifts for visitors from social networking sites. Will certainly work on that one for my blog. Anyway, whoseesads plugin is extremely helpful in showing specific ads for each different group. Some times, putting one-fit-all kind of ads is not working that well. Reyn Arias last blog post..I Love Your Comments!

By: David Pheromone

David Pheromone — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 03:50:45 +0000

@Leo
I am a believer of social marketing. Off course organic traffic is the king. However, you can create the a whole persona and character to customers for social marketing. Imagine selling or recommending stuff to your friend. It is much easier sales than any other. Only thing is that it requires whole lot of monitoring.

By: Caroline Middlebrook

Caroline Middlebrook — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:41:24 +0000

@Dennis, no the plugin does not work like that. Only Google can determine what ad is shown, the plugin simply determines which visitors will see an ad. It simply has rules on the server side that will determine whether or not the resulting webpage has the AdSense code in it or not. If it does, it is just an ordinary AdSense ad.

By: Mike Collins

Mike Collins — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 04:15:12 +0000

Caroline, I agree that the more tech-savvy a visitor is the less likely they are to click on an ad. It makes blogs such as yours difficult to monetize via AdSense simply because your readers are so used to seeing the ads they've become blind to them. They also know exactly what they are. I believe other niches are more easily monetized with AdSense of banner ads. @Leo, You make a great point about social media. A lot of people spend a lot of time marketing themselves and their content on social sites but most stats I've seen show that visitors from those sites are quick to click on to the next site. For example, looking at my latest stats I see that when someone finds my blog through StumbleUpon the average time they spend on my blog is 54 seconds. On the other hand, people who find me through my comments on Caroline's blog spend an average of 7 minutes and 50 seconds. That's quite a difference! Mike Collinss last blog post..What Scrooge McDuck Taught Me About Internet Marketing

By: Wynter Jones

Wynter Jones — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:16:39 +0000

You’re right, there is a plethora of traffic coming to your site from various sources and all of them have different goals. It’s important to study your traffic analysis so that you can optimize it for success.

Depending on your blog of course, and niche. Because if you want to cater to Social Traffic you would want to highlight Twitter, Facebook, Blog networks, etc to utilize to incoming traffic.

Wynter Joness last blog post..What�s Hot on Site Flipping Marketplace

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:00:43 +0000

Building Freebies and then getting the system to dole them out seems to be a great way to promote. Thanks for your insight, Rick Ricks last blog post..Answer Analyst Video Review

By: Ben Pei

Ben Pei — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:15:50 +0000

Its actually tougher to keep your social traffic as compared to search engine! Not that they are not targeted but maybe they are more saavy like you said. Ben Peis last blog post..Top 10 Facebook Games Of The Year

By: Dennis Edell

Dennis Edell — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:39:40 +0000

A most excellent breakdown Caroline, thanks! I do have a (dumb) question about that plugin, if anyone can answer... Now I get the point that 1 person will see 1 ad, while another will se another, but that doesn't mean 2 different ads can occupy the same "space", right? Dennis Edells last blog post..Free Backlinks: A Traffic Experiment via Commenting & Promotion

By: Caroline Middlebrook

Caroline Middlebrook — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:47:39 +0000

@Jim, Clickbank is a great place to look for affiliate products to sell as the commissions are usually much higher than Amazon.

By: Kevon Edmonds

Kevon Edmonds — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 01:45:13 +0000

@beth Even with diverse topics, you can still achieve strong search engine traffic. Just make sure you really optimize each page for terms you'd like that page to hit. My site gets 900 visitors a day from search engine traffic, but it's from 500 different terms. The thing here is that you can hit enough smaller terms and have a long enough tail that you can get search engine traffic. Kevon Edmondss last blog post..Keith Mitchell: After 7's Untold Story

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 01:32:35 +0000

I don't have enough traffic on my site - yet - to generate anything but a few pennies per day with AdSense. Where should I look to find something tangible to sell? Maybe set up an Amazon store? (I tried the travel affiliate route combined with AdWords and due to the low click-to-purchase ratio, all I did was burn through $$.) Jims last blog post..Silver Oak Cellars Release Day - Saturday February 7 2009

By: T Edwards

T Edwards — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:17:35 +0000

I have yet to incorporate in adsense ads on my blog. Honestly, I don't feel the traffic is strong enough to warrant it but I also don't feel like it's the best KIND of blog for alot of adsense. I certainly don't get much search engine traffic. I'm pretty new at internet marketing but it seems like the best blogs and sites for adsense marketing are designed from the outside with that in mind. T T Edwardss last blog post..Interview With An Entrepreneur: Bootleg Video Broker

By: Beth Partin

Beth Partin — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:23:39 +0000

I started out using Adsense on my blog and got really annoying matches, like diet ads when I was running a series about chocolatiers in Denver. I was really hoping to get ads from Denver bars or something like that, but none of that came up on Adsense, and my site wasn't big enough to make Denver institutions want to advertise on it. I'm still looking for some appropriate affiliate ads for a location-related blog. My site has so many different subjects on it in a given month, it's a little hard for me to target search engine traffic. Beth Partins last blog post..Wandering around the Golden Triangle,* Denver: The Perimeter, Part 1

By: Ryan Martin

Ryan Martin — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:37:58 +0000

I always find it interesting to look at my analyitics account and see which referral website provide the most time spent on site and click outs. I am not selling ads, so I am in a little different boat, but time spent on site and conversions are still my goals.

I agree completely about search engine traffic. The search engine traffic typically provides better conversions.

By: Harvey

Harvey — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:16:52 +0000

All of my traffic is from Search Engines, therefore many of my visitors never come back. This then means i can put AdSense ads on all the posts. Like Kevon said it depends on whether the loyalty is needed or not!

By: Kevon Edmonds

Kevon Edmonds — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:42:27 +0000

Search engine traffic can be really hit or miss. I remember my brother ran a myspace site and the traffic was heavily from search engines and never very loyal. As such, he was able to be far more abusive with his ads (pop unders, more per page) because even if he angered the visitors, they never were coming back anyway. However, on a site like this where loyalty is crucial, it's much more important to conduct yourself in a professional manner with those search engine visitors and to try and win them over. Kevon Edmondss last blog post..Keith Mitchell: After 7's Untold Story

By: Caroline Middlebrook

Caroline Middlebrook — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:00:26 +0000

@Kelly, if you’re writing a blog, then I wouldn’t recommend writing for AdSense because it’s generally one of the lowest sources of income unless the entire blog is geared towards it.

@Leo, you’ve just hit on something there which has given me another idea for a blog post, I’ll follow up your comment next week!

By: Mikael Rieck

Mikael Rieck — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 07:27:12 +0000

The great thing about the WhoSeesAds plugin is that you can target all your monetization strategies towards different types of traffic. You can show Adsense to SE visitors and banners to repeat or social visitors. You can tweak it any way you like. The most important thing however is to always test test and test again. Things might be set in stone on one site while things can be completely different on another site. Don't take anything as "facts". Test test and test again :) Mikael Riecks last blog post..VPI Cat Health Insurance - Balancing Care and Costs

By: Donny Gamble

Donny Gamble — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 02:53:41 +0000

These are some great points. You definitely have to cater your monetization tactics towards the type of traffic in order to receive maximum results. If you are receiving more search engine traffic then refferal traffic, than you would probably add more Google Adsense ads to your blog Donny Gambles last blog post..OnePoke.com : Social Networking Evolved

By: Puspanjali

Puspanjali — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 02:34:48 +0000

Yes search engine traffic or the so called”organic ” traffic is the best as they come to my blog searching my keyword and they stay the longest.And yes to be successfully monetize the blog one needs to own information products.Ebooks are good examples.
You can write your own or find some one to write for you on your niche topic like these guys at http://www.andrewanddaryl.com/andrewanddaryl.html.At the start of the blog most have a daily job and keep struggling to make regular posts.I think it is a good idea to outsource to write the ebook and concentrate on marketing and monetizing.

By: Leo

Leo — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:02:03 +0000

I personally don't see a point to market socially other than for branding purposes but then again, I haven't had much success doing it with the metrics that I use when determining whether something is performing well. I would imagine video and photo sites would outperform a content blog on sites like stumble upon any day of the week. I would love to hear ONE blogger that makes a decent income from the social sites and what they are doing to get it...then again, I imagine that this minority won't give information like that up. Traffic for traffic's sake is just nothing more than an ego trip...been there and done that.... Leos last blog post..Internet Marketing and the Case for Remarkable Content

By: Kelly Verge

Kelly Verge — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:48:09 +0000

It can be a tough balancing act. If you write content for adsense, you have to make sure you're providing great content (albeit targeted content) for your readers. If you write for your readers, you might be sacrificing targeted traffic. I do agree, however, that if you provide a freebie related to your theme, you'll benefit in the long run by being able to point related offers their way in the future. That's a great model regardless of your traffic source. Kelly Verges last blog post..Autoblogging Case Study

By: Gennaro

Gennaro — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:24:41 +0000

I was surprised to see, in the stats, that people who arrive from search engines stay on the site the longest. It makes sense to me now, in that, they are looking for specific content and will likely read your content if it’s good. Those relying on AdSense or Adbrite for making cash need to spend time understanding their niche (especially the keywords in search)