Let's talk about what's working in social media and what's not. First let's get the overall stats out-of-the-way. This handy chart helps us identify the winning networks. What we want to see is higher page visits and lower bounce rates. We can probably derive a formula for the relationship of the two. (I am guessing that "time on site" is in seconds, but I'm not clear on that. The numbers seem rather high given the bounce rates I've seen. Usually a real bounce lasts between 2 and 10 seconds.)
So where are you WINNING and where are you losing?
I'll give a review of my stats here for the same period in the chart above and we can compare notes.
Uber.la Referral Stats Sept. 2013 to Feb. 2014
Google Analytics / Sample size (10,044 sessions)
Social Referral Stats 2014
Some interesting data and some big differences in my audience and the big boy market sampled in the graphic above.
Insights:
- Great back links are the most valuable. (The Business Insider link has brought over 5,000 unique visitors)
- LinkedIn and Google+ are the standout winners for me.
- Twitter is the highest driver.
- Facebook (mobile) should be considered a valid channel and site should be adapted accordingly.
- YouTube brings me NOTHING.
- Zero referrals from YouTube
Overview of Incoming Traffic for 2014
2014 Traffic sources - blogging
Do you think SEO is not important? 53% of my traffic is from organic search. (WordPress does a great job at optimization, but a few choice plugins and good content helps boost things along.)
The Overview Graph - Uber.la 2014
An amazing 89% of my visitors are FIRST TIMERS. What are you doing to encourage a new visitor to discover more content, view more pages, engage in your conversation? And while I was not focused on blogging for quite a bit of this period due to some personal business, you can see that my numbers didn't fall off the charts. That's all due to the SEO volume which stays consistent if I blog or not.
New content is great. Google and your readers all respond to new content. But your traffic may be more dependant on SEO and deep content than you know. Make sure you get the basics right with SEO. Then you can refine your content, your goals, and even your design. But the blocking and tackling is the first step for most of us.
Key takeaway: SEO is the king. Content is the queen.
John McElhenney
@jmacofearth < follow me on Twitter
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See Uber.la for more marketing ideas and digital strategies.. And I welcome your comments and suggestions here on HuffPo.