Are social bookmarking sites the best source of traffic for a niche blog?

jessekanclerz · 03-05-2008, 07:17 AM

I have been blogging since mid-December of last year, however the only promotion I had been doing was adding comments on blogs with a similar focus. My niche is marketing, with a leaning toward direct and email marketing. I had been receiving some traffic from the back links with the majority coming from keyword searches - these types of visitors appeared to be somewhat engaged with the content staying an average of 3-4 minutes on my site.

A few days ago I took two of my better posts and put them on Digg. I did not receive much traffic from this listing, however I've noticed an explosion of traffic from Reddit. The other day my analytics clocked 117 unique visitors with 100 of them coming from Reddit.

However, the Reddit visitors are not engaged with my site. They leave almost instantaneously, skewing the bounce rate and average site visit time extremely high.

In my opinion it seems these social bookmarking sites pander to readers looking for breaking news and more general content.

In light of these observations should a niche blog (especially one not concerned with generating advertising revenue) focus more on increasing organic traffic or rely on artificially generated traffic from Digg, Reddit in the hope of attracting its narrower target readers from the mass of visitors?

What are your opinions?

gridsix · 03-05-2008, 02:50 PM

Yes...

I've been using them in conjunction with a small link building campaign for [link removed] SodBlog, and we get quite a bit of traffic from the social sites... Digg is a good place to start.

CaffinePhil · 03-05-2008, 03:21 PM

You have hit the nail on the head with the social bookmarking thing. I often do it with Digg, I look at the stories, click on the link and usually it isn't what I was expecting or it is only a funny pic I need a few seconds to admire.

My person opinion (for what its worth) is that the kind of post that I tend to click on and either stay at, revisit or bookmark are the ones with the lists, e.g. 47 Marketing Tips You Need to know NOW! Type thing.

I'm still new to all this and have very limited experience with social bookmarking. I do have a list of those type of site if you'd like it let me know and I will dig it out.

I will definitely consider submitting to reddit too.

gridsix · 03-05-2008, 03:25 PM

And make sure you give your readers the chance to submit/share your stories; share the workload!

bogs · 03-05-2008, 06:41 PM

I use this one to easy submit to social bookmarkings..
it might help: http://www.stashy.com/poster/

CaffinePhil · 03-06-2008, 02:00 AM

Thanks bogs, will give that one a go.

arcel · 03-06-2008, 04:54 AM

yup... if your just new and you want to get some traffic, submitting your blog in social bookmarking sites can really help you increase your traffic.

gridsix · 03-06-2008, 06:22 AM

Better tey, try this one:

http://www.wolf-howl.com/tools/socia...script-widget/

nalds20 · 03-06-2008, 09:37 AM

you can get huge traffic in social bookmarking.... it create backlink to your site...
try this link TOP 30 SOCIAL BOOKMARKING

gridsix · 03-06-2008, 09:39 AM

Is that one free?

x3mario · 03-06-2008, 12:40 PM

Social bookmarking can be a good source of traffic but some of them are sending only traffic for short time.

MrCat · 03-06-2008, 12:51 PM

Any marketing method that brigns in targeted visitors and make conversions would work just well. SB is just one of them. Participating in similar niche forum and blogs is also a nice way to get targeted traffic

kevalin · 03-06-2008, 09:51 PM

Well Social Bookmarking is a great resource for traffic... but each website gives you different traffic types. To put it in simple terms, Digg traffic comes to read an article then leaves, they don't Browse around, same with Reddit, Fark, and Newsvine. Traffic from stumbleupon, the people will stay and search around the website, overall better traffic. Mixx traffic is the same, I like the community on Mixx and they have a high tendency of staying around and reading.

I recommend if you are going to be using Social websites, that you put Related Article links at the bottom of your post, I noticed that by doing this you will have a higher chance of people staying and reading other articles.

If you want to read a good article about the types of traffic to expect from these websites, you can follow this link and read the article.

My favorite Social Submitting website is Socialmarker.com, it's the best one I have found so far, and it's growing and changing on a daily basis. Just make sure you do not submit your own website to Newsvine, they are the only website that cares if you post your own content. Other than, use the websites that apply to your article, so do not submit an article about the environment to Sphinn which is all about Internet Marketing, or to Slash dot which technology news. So if you stick to those rules you are good to go and will get traffic from them.

Another piece of advice, the time you submit to these places makes a big difference, I recommend testing out posting times and see which one works the best for you.

gnine11 · 03-07-2008, 02:01 AM

yes i think Stumble and digg are very good and if you are alert enough you can easlity get them through different means........means you have to decide.

CaffinePhil · 03-07-2008, 02:28 AM

Great post kevalin. It sort of all depends on what time of traffic you require. I'll keep that in mind regarding newsvine too.

Utexas · 03-07-2008, 07:47 PM

It's all about content. post something crazy and it'll be guaranteed to get dugg.

oracle · 03-14-2008, 11:10 AM

Social Bookmarking can be helpful to introduce your blog especially if it's new. But it still best if you'll focus your efforts in increasing your organic traffic as you can be assured that you will get quality traffic from organic searches.

randyranger · 03-17-2008, 03:54 AM

good information here

http://www.social-x-change.com/viewtopic.php?t=4

CaffinePhil · 03-17-2008, 04:09 AM

Had a page added to stumble upon last week and noticed a hike in traffic from 5 visitors the 2 days priot to 280 visitors all from stumble upon, avg time on site over 1 minute and bounce rate under %40.

gridsix · 03-17-2008, 08:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaffinePhil

Had a page added to stumble upon last week and noticed a hike in traffic from 5 visitors the 2 days priot to 280 visitors all from stumble upon, avg time on site over 1 minute and bounce rate under %40.

That's all you did; add it to Stumble and the traffic grew that much?