Time Management #1: Traffic vs. Influence
Commanding Influence: Build A Strong Online Presence
I’m convinced that the number one issue bloggers seem to be facing today is the simple challenge of driving traffic to their websites.
We’re driven to believe that more traffic equals more comments. More traffic equates to more money. More traffic translates to more everything. This philosophy is driven into our heads and we’re left with little else to focus on while growing our websites.
But more traffic isn’t always the answer. More traffic isn’t always the best step to focus on building comments, cash and community. If your site is poorly designed, 1,000 visitors per day who immediately click away from your site aren’t going to help you even though that is a lot of traffic for a growing website. A high bounce rate reveals wasted site traffic.
Developing bloggers and webmasters need to start focusing on Influence. Influence is an abstract term that measures how many people are really impacted by your website compared to how many people actually visit it. In other words, out of every 100 people that visit your site, how many are moved to action by your writing?
For example, I would rather have 25 people who I interact with and who are willing to comment, purchase products I recommend and recommend their friends to my site than 1,000 visitors that immediately click away. Those 25 readers that you have influence with will provide you with more rewards and value than those 1,000. But hey, 1,000 visitors sure will look nice on your analytics charts.
Teaser RSS Feed vs. Full RSS Feed
Recently I changed the way my RSS feed is set up. I used to only deliver a small portion of each article via RSS. This compelled my readers to visit my website if they wanted to read the whole post and it pumped up my visitor numbers.
I just did away with that and started delivering full articles to my readers. As soon as I did, traffic on Site Sketch 101 went down and the number of people who respond to my ‘calls to action’ to purchase products went up. I believe it’s related.
Instead of focusing solely on building traffic, I changed my mindset to reflect ways that I could provide greater convenience to my readers. I’m still getting my posts out to the world, but now they don’t have to come to the site to read them. This hurts traffic levels but it’s helped my influence greatly.
Stop looking at your analytics program every ten minutes all day every day. I used to do that also and I wasted a lot of valuable time. Switch your focus. Start building relationships. Start connecting with people. Start influencing the internet one person at a time.
You’re already strapped for time so don’t waste the few valuable minutes that you do have available on things that don’t really matter. Focus on improving your site design. Focus on improving your writing ability and providing better content. Hone in on building relationships and really getting to know the bloggers around you.
Dimi said:
Nicholas, very well said.
I always catch myself spending way to much time analyzing and investigating my analytic’s results. When I should be concentrating on what to write next, or what to do to make the user experience better.
Now if ad revenue is what keeps your site going and you are depending on that revenue, I can see how growing your page views and lowering your bounce rate is important but like you said, if you work on your content, look and feel of your site, and user experience the people will come!
Nice post, thanks!
Helmi Asyraf | Huzzer Magazine said:
On the issue on how revenue helps our sites keep going, in my opinion it is not necessarily be the reason why we should look for ‘low quality’ traffics at the expense of more supporting site visitors.
It is because the only costs for a site are hosting and domain name which we have to pay annually (hardly over $100). Besides that, the expense that we incur can be avoided.
Therefore, I think we have one whole year to think about ways of getting the money for the costs. We just need to figure out how can we get roughly $8.440 per month which I’m confident that hard for us.
Rather make ourselves unnecessarily busy with stats and way of getting more money, it is wiser for us to focus in creating better contents and have more loyal fans which is better in longer terms.
It is because I’m sure that from the group with such attributes, we can easily get something to pay our bills.
Cheers!
Nicholas Cardot said:
Helmi Asyraf | Huzzer Magazine » You’re right but you’re possibly looking at it differently than others may be. By ‘keeip it going’ they might not simply be referring to enough to pay the eight dollars each month to host the site but maybe enough money to make it worth a person’s time. People should be rewarded for taking the time to create amazing content.
Nicholas Cardot said:
Dimi » You’re welcome and thank you for the good comment. I still maintain that traffic will eventually go even higher if you’re focused on the fundamentals rather than actually focusing on simply driving as many random faces to your site as possible. I used to catch myself spending tons of time in Google Analytics. I know hardly look in there at all.
Gordie said:
I read a comment on another blog that made a great point. He found that Google traffic brings in a much higher percentage of sales than social media traffic. He also suggested that one doesn’t offer any “bribes” to get people to pot in to your email list. He said the ones who are genuinely interested in what you have to say will still sign up and will be a higher proportion of customers?
What does everyone else think?
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Dave Doolin | Website In A Weekend said:
I don’t offer bribes for my email list and I’m getting a 50% open rate.
I may change my MO in the future, but that’s my current results.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Dave Doolin | Website In A Weekend » That’s good. But remember it’s not just about the open rate but also about the subscribe rate.
Helmi Asyraf | Huzzer Magazine said:
About the bribe, I think it depends on the purpose why you put up the ‘bribe’.
It is because for me, it is always better to put it up as rather getting just one, you will get two types of subscribers – those who interested in knowing you and those who interested of your bribe initially.
So, by knowing this exact fact, you can use the ebook for example to influence others to be more loyal subscribers and turn the other group into your loyal fans.
Rather simply have cut paste ebook or buy it somewhere else which we have no clue about its quality, we should use the bribe to magnify our quality and credibility to our subscribers to the level it can influence their mind set.
I believe that there are always two sides of a coin.
What do you think?
Nicholas Cardot said:
Gordie » I think that bribes are a great way to get both types of people. You get hose who are your fans and you can hopefully turn some bribe seekers into fans.
Jordan Cooper said:
Nicholas, what you’ve written here is what I base virtually all of my blogging philosophies on. What is traffic that doesn’t “convert” other than a number on an analytics page?
@Gordie: Search engine traffic vs. social media as far as sales referrals is really dependent on what the purpose of your blog & products are.
From what I’ve seen, if you’re offering pure help/tutorial based content, then you’ll convert well via Google (since you’re directly answering a question likely typed into search) – but don’t expect much “stickiness” out of it. Why? Because one the user’s question is answered or buys something that helps him/her, then is there a need to come back? How often do you visit your printer manufacturer’s site? (other than for driver updates)
Social media, on the other hand, I think is more effective for “personal brand” based endeavors – where you’re not only selling a product/service, but you’re selling yourself also in the process. When it comes to a help/tutorial video about how to use Audacity, I could frankly care less who’s presenting the info as long as it helps me… but when it comes to products that are either advice/experience-based or entertainment, the value is in the *person* offering it. Developing the influence it takes to be that person can’t simply be done with bulk traffic and SEO alone.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Jordan Cooper » Those are great observations. Both types of traffic are incredibly useful depending on the type of product, service or content that you offer. I completely agree.
Evelyn said:
I agree with everything you’re saying. I use to check my statistics like crazy and being that I am new at blogging, my numbers are not that high. I would get down about the numbers and lose my focus.
I prefer to receive full RSS feeds. I like the fact that I can read the whole post without having to click away and go to the person’s site. When I get the full RSS feed, I decide if I want to visit the site to leave a comment/re-tweet the post.
Thank you for your follow-up email. I was very impressed. It showed me that you are serious about what you are doing. I learn a lot for you.
I enjoyed this post!
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Evelyn » I’m glad to hear that you’re learning a lot. I used to use partial feeds just for that extra click through but I’ve decided that more people like you are interested in being able to find and read the content without clicking through.
Aminul Islam Sajib said:
Today I will tell you something. I had subscribed to this blog’s RSS feed using my Google reader long ago, but later I unsubscribed. Do you know why? It’s because your RSS was showing an excerpt of your post and was also forcing me to have a look on your blog to read the full content. I hate this and I don’t stay subscribed to those who offer limited content on RSS feed.
I believe that if you can write in proper way, reader will definitely come to your blog to leave a comment; just like I did now.
P.S. : I’ve resubscribed to your blog’s full RSS feed.
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Helmi Asyraf | Huzzer Magazine said:
I agree with you.
It will definitely the whole purpose of RSS feeds id the feed that are available for us is in the excerpt format. For me, the whole purpose of feed is to let us read our favourite blogs from a single platform.
From there, we can scan through on which articles that we are interested with and if it really catches our attention, we can simply go to the blog and leave our comments as not all blog post ‘deserve’ comment from its readers.
Cheers!
Nicholas Cardot said:
Aminul Islam Sajib » I’m glad that you’ve resubscribed. I think that a lot of people feel the same way about feeds.
Bruce said:
I hate it when people only do part of the RSS feed. 95 percent of the time I wont even bother reading a blog if they only do excerpts. I don’t like the annoyance of having to open up a window and clicking through a couple of times once I get out of my rss reader. I use a reader for its convenience and if people rob me of that then they lose me as a “customer”.
That being said, if I find the content to be very valuable then the blog can fall into that 5%.
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Helmi Asyraf | Huzzer Magazine said:
Totally agree with you.
Care to share what kind of blogs and how they are in your 5% group?
I believe that everybody would love to know that, Bruce.
Bruce said:
Well sitesketch was the only one in this niche.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Bruce » Back in the beginning, I failed to realize that so many people felt exactly as you do. But I wised up quickly and I now offer full RSS feeds.
Helmi Asyraf | Huzzer Magazine said:
Hi Nich,
I agree with you that high site traffic is not necessarily means high income.
This is when we can see how the 80/20 principle be into picture. Base on the principle, relatively 80% input will only constitutes 20% output. The other 80% output will be from the 20% input.
Basically, small numbers of our site visitors will be the reason for the most of our income. Therefore, if can find the ways how can we bring those in the ’80% input’ group to the ’20% input group’, we will definitely see increase return from our blog.
On of the way is by creating quality contents first before anything.
What is your say?
Nicholas Cardot said:
Helmi Asyraf | Huzzer Magazine » That’s true. But the goal is to find traffic sources that will provide a quality of traffic that will allow higher percentages to get involved.
Deepika said:
Hi Nick,
Its a very informative post friend.. We should not spend most of the time in checking our analytics. May be once in a day we can check it as a whole.
Remaining time we can concentrate on writing quality content to our blog, finding right ways to promote our blog and also reading articles in other blogs and commenting there.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Deepika » Why do you need to check it once a day? Are you going to make changes to your site on a daily basis to reflect some information that you got from your stats? I check mine no more than once per week. And usually it’s only because I have a question about how many visitors are coming from a particular keyword on Google or something so that I can go back and optimize an old article or something. I use my stats to determine direction for my blog.
Gabe | freebloghelp.com said:
It’s definitely true that not all traffic is the same. I’d like to think I have a great relationship with my regular visitors.
Although these regulars help me create a community setting, the truth is, most of my blog income are from new visitors who stumbled onto my site for the first time.
I understand that only a small percentage of my visitors click on ads, and that’s totally OK. To even get to that point, I have to be able to establish credibility, which I think the number of comments speak for themselves.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Gabe | freebloghelp.com » That’s an interesting and somewhat true observation about most of our ad clicks coming from new visitors, but if you’re trying to sell a product that you created I can’t imagine a better person to buy it than someone who you’ve built trust and gained influence with.
marshall said:
Nick,
With my engineering background, the draw to statistics was strong. After a short while I found that Google Analytics was not the whole traffic story. I requires javascript enabled visitors. When I added wordpress statistics and server based statistics (awstats), a clearer picture emerged.
Now I watch stats a little, but am focusing on creating compelling content, and clear call’s to action.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
marshall » That’s a much better focus. Your stats probably do better because you don’t focus on them than they did when they were your primary focus.
Keith said:
Nick, I want to comment mainly on the feed part of this. I really despise not getting the full article in my reader, for more than one reason:
1. I do a lot of my feed reading on the go, I use my blackberry to do it, and I put a “star” (google reader) on articles I want to come back to later to comment on or for topic ideas. Most blogs are not friendly to mobile phones, so clicking through while I am waiting on my lunch or in an airport just isn’t going to happen.
2. It is too easy to slide past the short excerpt and start skimming the next article for some good content. A lot of times I will unsubscribe to feeds that send out only short excerpts when cleaning up my reader.
Also, it is way too easy to get addicted to analytics! I try to check them twice a week now MAX.
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CSS Awesome Webdesign said:
“If your site is poorly designed, 1,000 visitors per day who immediately click away from your site aren’t going to help you even though that is a lot of traffic for a growing website.”
I think this is an important part. You have to catch the interest of a visitor and get deeper in his mind. With a poorly design you didn´t do this. Everbody says content is king but without a nice body the content is prince!
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Elena said:
Another well-written post Nick. I so agree about full feeds versus partial. When I use my feed reader it’s much more appealing to read the whole article than click on a link and go to the site.
For me, doing that would break the flow of reading the articles and if you subscribe to many feeds, it makes the process endless.
You never know how many of the feed subscribers truly stick around but at least by giving them full feeds, you’re giving them the most convenient way to access your blog and I think that is what stands out more to readers.
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Chad @ Tech201 said:
Site design is extremely important. It’s been said many times here at SS101, but it can’t be emphasized enough. I am in the process of preparing a new design as well.
It’s interesting that you mention your traffic when down when you changed your RSS feed. I have been toying witht he idea of reverting from a full feed to a partial one, in an attempt to drive more traffic.
Since I am not really recommending products, maybe that will be a good change (at least for now).
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Lee Ka Hoong said:
I used to check my stats in daily basis, not more than 5 times a day, 2 times a day since I can only check them after work at night. I’m trying to stop checking on them and take the time to get some writing ideas. Or I would spend time replying comment in my blog, I believe that replying comment from readers would really help in keeping them to return to your blog.
Regarding the RSS feed, that would be new to me. I’m going to try your way Nicholas.
Cheers,
Lee
chandan said:
I am seeing that my blog bouncing rate is increasing very high, for which I am some upset. It might be due to loading time of my blog. So I am trying to load my blog faster.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
chandan » Load time and design are two very high contributors to high bounce rates.
Chad @ Tech201 said:
Definitely. I am switching my web host this week in an attempt to speed up load times. My host is known for being slower than some alternatives.
BlueHost here I come…
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Chad @ Tech201 » I use BlueHost and I’ve not run into any troubles so far. I’m very happy with them.
jan geronimo said:
Thanks for switching to full feed. This is the only thing that bothered me with your blog before.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
jan geronimo » You’re welcome. Sorry that it took so long for me to get the message into my thick skull.
Kok Siong Chen said:
“Stop looking at your analytics program every ten minutes all day every day.” i used to check my blog stat frequently. After reading your article, i know this is a waste of time. Thanks for sharing!
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Kok Siong Chen » I used to do it all the time also. I wasted tons of time on it. One day I just realized that it wasn’t helping me any.
Derek Jensen said:
I truly agree and continue to practice what you said in your final sentence. The relationships you build with other bloggers and just anyone related to helping you along the way with your blog is key to support.
They will be part of your traffic and most likely be very healthy to your blog and not just be a number that randomly visits. They too will tell others and soon your blog will be visited by people that will add to your content and be influential.
I personally have prevented myself from always checking my stats, ignoring my bounce rate, and just focusing on my content and talking and connecting with others.
Nicholas Cardot said:
Derek Jensen » Connections are such powerful resources. Don’t ever underestimate them.