5 ms·

Data from two years of blogging with no SEO

19 points by Ataub24 14y ago

underdown 14y ago
I'm pretty sure "top traffic sources" should read "top referral sources". If not then maybe he should be doing a little SEO after all.
- Ataub24 14y ago
  good catch- updated.
oatmealsnap 14y ago
Without any trends, or any data to compare it to, what is the point? HN might be a better place to post to get things read, but that is clearly a tech blog, and we don't even know how many followers he has. Its great that he has more viewers since writing for Forbes (I assume), but I don't know what I can learn from this.
- Ataub24 14y ago
  I learned from this that if you find a vehicle, produce decent content, you can find a niche for yourself (I am the write though).
danso 14y ago
What does "no SEO" even mean? That he doesn't use proper nouns in title or h1 tags? That he doesn't have any meta tags? That he didn't turn on a purported Wordpress SEO plugin?
- Ataub24 14y ago
  paid SEM.
- jwdunne 14y ago
  I imagine a number of things, such as: * Analysing keywords to find an optimal set to focus on * Optimising in favour of on-page factors, e.g adding well-chosen keywords in the page title and moderate coverage throughout your content. * Actively building links using a number of strategies, e.g guest blogging or exchanging links I guess "no SEO" could mean abstaining from actively improving your search engine rankings? I don't think SEO is exactly the same as not doing paid SEM. As we all know, there are some factors we can optimise for free.
nhebb 14y ago
Other than ego, would there be any point to doing SEO for a blog not connected to a product or consulting services?
- DanielBMarkham 14y ago
  Yes. You do basic SEO on a blog for the same reason you might run your HTML through a validator -- it's just good content creation manners.
  - onli 14y ago
    For example, if your blogengine has an archive without stable urls, you don't want that searchengines find an archive-page with many articles instead of the article itself, because it is possible the wanted article is already on another page. The typicial seo-way, as far as i know, would be to noindex the archive-pages, but you of course could also make the archive stable. Both ways are an optimization for search engines.
    - nhebb 14y ago
      It's a tumblr blog, so I figured the author meant link building. But, those are some good tips I hadn't thought of for my own blog.
pstadler 14y ago
"Some high level stats since I put Google analytics on my blog on February 28th, 2011. I never spent money on SEO, I did do an experiment for a month- buying twitter ads." It seems like he's associating SEO with running (Google-)ads, which is simply wrong and therefore this blog post is pretty much nonsense.
- Ataub24 14y ago
  Change SEO to paid SEM. Happier?
  - Ataub24 14y ago
    and by happier- I mean, make more sense?
    - pstadler 14y ago
      definitely.
      - Ataub24 14y ago
        :) reason #1,230 of why not to write a blog post at 1AM on saturday night.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Technically search engine optimization (aka SEO) is about keeping your content 'decodable' by search engines so they can know what you're talking about. Things like using <h1></h1> to indicate a heading and then using text rather than a rendered GIF as your headline font. Keeping your copyrights and other links up to date, being on topic and not linking to off topic random pages. All of those things are 'SEO.' The author is talking about driving traffic to the web site. Maybe that is Web User Herding (WUH) or something. Buying adwords to show up at the top of Google's results, creating thousands of inbound links on various sites to increase your page rank, those things are a waste of time unless you're living off your web site and will die if the money stop coming in.
- Ataub24 14y ago
  yes meant paid SEM.
andys627 14y ago
Great post. Just started blogging. At least a post a day mostly about my biz's industry. How much traffic did u have 1 month after starting? 3 months? 6 months? What were some things you started doing that really started boosting traffic?
- Ataub24 14y ago
  It was real small. The first two posts I emailed everyone I knew to let them I was starting to blog. It also pressured me to keep it up (no one wants to look like the idiot that says they are going to do something and don't keep it up). But once that faded- it was maybe 0-10 unique visitors a day for a bit. It kept growing and now I see a minimum of 100+ unique visitors a day (days I post). I'd recommend experimenting with the titles. Titles make a difference in this age.
engtech 14y ago
If people care about this kind of thing? Back when I ran a blog, I did 60k hits in a day once on feb 14th 2007. I stopped writing it in 2008. My old blog was averaging 15k views/month in 2010, and is now averaging about 12k views/month in 2012. blog was actively written between 2006 to 2008 Here are the views/year summary: 2006 - 454,315 views for the year 2007 - 1,843,164 views for the year, 2008 - 2,028,296 views for the year 2009 - 865,304 views for the year 2010 - 192,581 views for the year 2011 - 157,805 views for the year 2012 - 141,126 views for the year http://engtech.wordpress.com http://engtech.wordpress.com
iamchrisle 14y ago
1. Are you confusing SEO for visibility? SEO == Search Engine Optimization. Google, Bing, and Yahoo didn't even crack 0.5% of your referral sites. If you're not getting traffic from search engines then you're not optimized and ranking for stuff when someone searches. That has nothing to do with the technical stuff like tags and more to do with the actual content. Looking at the data you provide, Hacker News accounts for almost 1/2 your visits, 1/4 on Twitter, then everything else. (BTW, you don't have % of NEW visits in your post which is a more interesting number to read.) The half life of content on Twitter is 3 hours (http://www.factbrowser.com/facts/3488/ http://www.factbrowser.com/facts/3488/) which means you're only really visible for, at best, 1 day. Promotion on Hacker News, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are great but, if I were a writer, I would want to see long-term visibility to new readers where I'm NOT promoting yourself. ... Like Google searches. Assume people are looking to compare Techstars with something else. The #1 search, according to Google Instant search, for "techstars vs (something)" is "techstars vs y combinator" If your post "Given The Opportunity: Should You Do TechStars or YC" showed up on the first page of Google then I would say you've been able to achieve great visibility without SEO. ..... But you don't even show up in the first 5 pages. So, I think you've confused Search Engine Optimization with visibility. (common mistake, actually) ------------ Let's look at your data.... You didn't analyse or provide any insight, which is what I think people should DO with data. (Full disclosure: I'm work in the analytics department for my company. I research and write code to answer these kinds of questions for clients) 2. Are people actually reading your blog? It says currently that the average pages per visit is about 2 and they're spending 0:52 seconds on your blog. The average adult reads 250-300 words every minute. (http://yhoo.it/SZVfAy http://yhoo.it/SZVfAy) At a glance you average 150-200 word posts. Does that mean they're only reading half of the second page they go to (What is the time on page for second page?) What is the second page? Is it the home page or another blog post? The data you provide doesn't help to answer that. You didn't mention your "% of Exits". A bounce rate, by definition, is always visits that only visited one page and left. Therefore, "% of Bounce rate" isn't a good metric to look at for you because your average pages per visit is over 1. "% of Exits" sorted by the URL of the page would give you insight into your readers. If your "% of Exits" on your home page is really high, then it may mean your readers aren't finding anything interesting to read. Conversely, if the "% of Exits" is usually a blog post, that's OK, especially if it's their second page, it means they may have read two posts then left. ------------ 3. Are you gaining new readers / are old readers coming back? You said that the percentage of new visits is 70%. Over the past year is that increasing, decreasing, or going all over the place? What about "% of returning visits?" If you're trying to go after new readers, great job. I would think making sure they return for more later is also important. I don't think you really want to be a one hit wonder. ------------ 4. Are your readers subscribing to your mailing list? It's on the right side of every page, so I'm guessing you want to make sure people notice it. Nobody wants spam, so if they subscribe you're almost guaranteed they like what you're writing. Are visitors subscribing to your mailing list? Is that number increasing? It's a good thing if they are.

19 points by Ataub24 14y ago

I'm pretty sure "top traffic sources" should read "top referral sources". If not then maybe he should be doing a little SEO after all.

Ataub24 14y ago
good catch- updated.

oatmealsnap 14y ago

Without any trends, or any data to compare it to, what is the point? HN might be a better place to post to get things read, but that is clearly a tech blog, and we don't even know how many followers he has. Its great that he has more viewers since writing for Forbes (I assume), but I don't know what I can learn from this.

Ataub24 14y ago
I learned from this that if you find a vehicle, produce decent content, you can find a niche for yourself (I am the write though).

danso 14y ago

What does "no SEO" even mean? That he doesn't use proper nouns in title or h1 tags? That he doesn't have any meta tags? That he didn't turn on a purported Wordpress SEO plugin?

Ataub24 14y ago
paid SEM.
jwdunne 14y ago
I imagine a number of things, such as: * Analysing keywords to find an optimal set to focus on * Optimising in favour of on-page factors, e.g adding well-chosen keywords in the page title and moderate coverage throughout your content. * Actively building links using a number of strategies, e.g guest blogging or exchanging links I guess "no SEO" could mean abstaining from actively improving your search engine rankings? I don't think SEO is exactly the same as not doing paid SEM. As we all know, there are some factors we can optimise for free.

nhebb 14y ago

Other than ego, would there be any point to doing SEO for a blog not connected to a product or consulting services?

DanielBMarkham 14y ago
Yes. You do basic SEO on a blog for the same reason you might run your HTML through a validator -- it's just good content creation manners.
- onli 14y ago
  For example, if your blogengine has an archive without stable urls, you don't want that searchengines find an archive-page with many articles instead of the article itself, because it is possible the wanted article is already on another page. The typicial seo-way, as far as i know, would be to noindex the archive-pages, but you of course could also make the archive stable. Both ways are an optimization for search engines.
  - nhebb 14y ago
    It's a tumblr blog, so I figured the author meant link building. But, those are some good tips I hadn't thought of for my own blog.

pstadler 14y ago

"Some high level stats since I put Google analytics on my blog on February 28th, 2011. I never spent money on SEO, I did do an experiment for a month- buying twitter ads." It seems like he's associating SEO with running (Google-)ads, which is simply wrong and therefore this blog post is pretty much nonsense.

Ataub24 14y ago
Change SEO to paid SEM. Happier?
- Ataub24 14y ago
  and by happier- I mean, make more sense?
  - pstadler 14y ago
    definitely.
    - Ataub24 14y ago
      :) reason #1,230 of why not to write a blog post at 1AM on saturday night.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Technically search engine optimization (aka SEO) is about keeping your content 'decodable' by search engines so they can know what you're talking about. Things like using <h1></h1> to indicate a heading and then using text rather than a rendered GIF as your headline font. Keeping your copyrights and other links up to date, being on topic and not linking to off topic random pages. All of those things are 'SEO.' The author is talking about driving traffic to the web site. Maybe that is Web User Herding (WUH) or something. Buying adwords to show up at the top of Google's results, creating thousands of inbound links on various sites to increase your page rank, those things are a waste of time unless you're living off your web site and will die if the money stop coming in.

Ataub24 14y ago
yes meant paid SEM.

andys627 14y ago

Great post. Just started blogging. At least a post a day mostly about my biz's industry. How much traffic did u have 1 month after starting? 3 months? 6 months? What were some things you started doing that really started boosting traffic?

Ataub24 14y ago
It was real small. The first two posts I emailed everyone I knew to let them I was starting to blog. It also pressured me to keep it up (no one wants to look like the idiot that says they are going to do something and don't keep it up). But once that faded- it was maybe 0-10 unique visitors a day for a bit. It kept growing and now I see a minimum of 100+ unique visitors a day (days I post). I'd recommend experimenting with the titles. Titles make a difference in this age.

engtech 14y ago

If people care about this kind of thing? Back when I ran a blog, I did 60k hits in a day once on feb 14th 2007. I stopped writing it in 2008. My old blog was averaging 15k views/month in 2010, and is now averaging about 12k views/month in 2012. blog was actively written between 2006 to 2008 Here are the views/year summary: 2006 - 454,315 views for the year 2007 - 1,843,164 views for the year, 2008 - 2,028,296 views for the year 2009 - 865,304 views for the year 2010 - 192,581 views for the year 2011 - 157,805 views for the year 2012 - 141,126 views for the year http://engtech.wordpress.com http://engtech.wordpress.com

iamchrisle 14y ago

1. Are you confusing SEO for visibility? SEO == Search Engine Optimization. Google, Bing, and Yahoo didn't even crack 0.5% of your referral sites. If you're not getting traffic from search engines then you're not optimized and ranking for stuff when someone searches. That has nothing to do with the technical stuff like tags and more to do with the actual content. Looking at the data you provide, Hacker News accounts for almost 1/2 your visits, 1/4 on Twitter, then everything else. (BTW, you don't have % of NEW visits in your post which is a more interesting number to read.) The half life of content on Twitter is 3 hours (http://www.factbrowser.com/facts/3488/ http://www.factbrowser.com/facts/3488/) which means you're only really visible for, at best, 1 day. Promotion on Hacker News, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are great but, if I were a writer, I would want to see long-term visibility to new readers where I'm NOT promoting yourself. ... Like Google searches. Assume people are looking to compare Techstars with something else. The #1 search, according to Google Instant search, for "techstars vs (something)" is "techstars vs y combinator" If your post "Given The Opportunity: Should You Do TechStars or YC" showed up on the first page of Google then I would say you've been able to achieve great visibility without SEO. ..... But you don't even show up in the first 5 pages. So, I think you've confused Search Engine Optimization with visibility. (common mistake, actually) ------------ Let's look at your data.... You didn't analyse or provide any insight, which is what I think people should DO with data. (Full disclosure: I'm work in the analytics department for my company. I research and write code to answer these kinds of questions for clients) 2. Are people actually reading your blog? It says currently that the average pages per visit is about 2 and they're spending 0:52 seconds on your blog. The average adult reads 250-300 words every minute. (http://yhoo.it/SZVfAy http://yhoo.it/SZVfAy) At a glance you average 150-200 word posts. Does that mean they're only reading half of the second page they go to (What is the time on page for second page?) What is the second page? Is it the home page or another blog post? The data you provide doesn't help to answer that. You didn't mention your "% of Exits". A bounce rate, by definition, is always visits that only visited one page and left. Therefore, "% of Bounce rate" isn't a good metric to look at for you because your average pages per visit is over 1. "% of Exits" sorted by the URL of the page would give you insight into your readers. If your "% of Exits" on your home page is really high, then it may mean your readers aren't finding anything interesting to read. Conversely, if the "% of Exits" is usually a blog post, that's OK, especially if it's their second page, it means they may have read two posts then left. ------------ 3. Are you gaining new readers / are old readers coming back? You said that the percentage of new visits is 70%. Over the past year is that increasing, decreasing, or going all over the place? What about "% of returning visits?" If you're trying to go after new readers, great job. I would think making sure they return for more later is also important. I don't think you really want to be a one hit wonder. ------------ 4. Are your readers subscribing to your mailing list? It's on the right side of every page, so I'm guessing you want to make sure people notice it. Nobody wants spam, so if they subscribe you're almost guaranteed they like what you're writing. Are visitors subscribing to your mailing list? Is that number increasing? It's a good thing if they are.