Growing traffic. Everyone seems obsessed with getting their content out there to as many places and searches they possibly can. For a business, it’s always cool to get national or regional recognition that gets some interest flowing in your company. Is it the right traffic, though?
Working in the Newspaper industry gave me a fascinating look at the ridiculous chase for more eyeballs. Many newspapers continue to steeply discount (and devalue) their newspaper simply to maintain high advertising rates with inflated viewership. This went to extremes – such as counting readership on stolen copies of the newspaper (yes, it was allowed by the Audit Bureau of Circulations).
My Readership is Steady
Readership on my site has had its up and downs, but it’s fairly steady. During the week, I average about a thousand readers directly, about two thousand RSS and another 100+ via email. Given the fact that I write a lot about Indianapolis and the narrow topic of online marketing – combined with me being a one-person, part-time shop – I’m proud of those stats.
Regionally, the blog has provided me a lot of exposure. I believe I’m well-respected for the hard work that I’ve done, both on the blog and helping companies. I get a ton of invitations for coffee and meetings – so many that I’m often not available and it sometimes irritates those who are trying to catch up with me. I also get enough speaking engagements that I’m seriously working on ‘tuning’ my speeches and improving on their delivery.
The number of eyeballs that take in my blog exceed the resources that I personally have to deliver on every request. I couldn’t imagine my readership doubling and how that might impact my life. I already work too many hours and feel as though I don’t spend as much quality time with my family as I’d like to.
As you look to how your company is going to grow the volume of readers and traffic, you need to ask yourself, “How much is enough?”. What if you doubled your readers? How many more leads would that put in your pipeline? Could your business handle it? Many businesses aren’t prepared to scale. Others do quite nicely with enough traffic to pay their employees and owners with an honest salary.
It’s not always about more eyeballs, sometimes it’s just the right eyeballs. Relevant leads are what counts.
I guess it always depends on the type of site you run. For me, more traffic equals more revenue. They are directly related.
If you have 4 or 5 ad spots that run CPM adverts, it could mean an extra $300 or $400 in your pocket at the end of a day.. multiply this buy 365.. and you get quite a substancial amount 🙂
Very true, Geeks! My blog is one of those ‘hybrid’ blogs that’s both a publication and a personal brand for consultation and speaking. If it were simply a publication, I would definitely be pushing the envelope on trying to get as many readers as I could.
How are you judging relevance? I don’t ask that to be flippant at all, btw.
I mean…how? You can see where some of the leads come from…thats a start. You can see when people comment…another data point. You can judge the volume of email you get to “connect” or speak….but what other factors do you use to judge relvanant readers?
In the end, 1000, 2000, 10,000 etc. how do you know if your “SHAZAM” lights up as bright as Seth Godin’s? More people know Paris Hilton than Angelica Huston, but I know which one I want to see in a movie.
It brings to mind to me those old machines you used to see in bars “Grip here to see what kind of lover you are?”…everyone knew it was just a way to steal your 50 cents, but with enough booze, people would line up to use the machine.
It was a question everyone wanted to know the answer to, and one which no machine was ever qualified to judge, so desire for the feedback over-rides reason and I am trying not to go there with my own efforts in blogging.
Regards,
Wrich