Where Should You Be Promoting Your SEO, Copywriting and Marketing Blog Posts?

by Andrew on Jun 22, 2011 • 1:43 pm 15 Comments

Is This Image Subtle Enough?

Avid fans may recall that a few months back I launched into a rant about promoting your own content. I explained that if you didn’t promote your own posts, they’d sink without a trace, and I recommended a half dozen websites that you might want to consider when it comes to shameless self-promotion.

Well, here’s the follow-up. Using my “The Five People You Meet in Online Marketing Hell” post as an example, I’m going to show you just where you should be promoting your SEO, copywriting and marketing blog posts.

The Candidates

My last post was submitted to the following websites, which I’ll be covering in some detail. Please note that I’m taking it as a given that you’re carrying out some search engine optimisation on your site, and that you’ll be generating some traffic that way.

Five People… was promoted on the following websites:

Sphinn: Internet Marketing News for Search & Internet Marketing Professionals
SERPd: Search Engine Marketing & SEO News
Twitter: Instant Microblogging Service
Facebook: The World’s Largest Social Network
StumbleUpon: Share and Discover The Best of the Web

The Criteria

When it comes to judging how effective the above websites are, you need to look at how much traffic they will deliver. I’ll also look at the average time spent on the post by visitors from each site, and point out how many hits you get per vote (ReTweet, Facebook Like, etc).

Hits: Pretty self explanatory – the amount of traffic driven by each site, taken from Google Analytics
Average Time on Site: Again, just what it says on the tin.
Number of Votes: How many people have Tweeted, Liked or Voted For the post?
Views to Vote Ratio: Do those votes equate to more views?
New Audience Percentage: Did the site attract new blood, or is it just spreading the word to regular readers?

A site that delivers lots of visitors who stick around and read, with as many hits-per-vote as possible is going to be the best place to promote your blog. Especially if it puts you in front of a new audience.

The Performances

Facebook

Like many of you, I started using Facebook as a social tool instead of a blog promotion tool. The Unmemorable Title facebook page is still growing, and is populated mainly with people who already follow me on Twitter. And it shows.

Hits: 15
Average Time on Site: 1 minute, 5 seconds
Number of Votes: 18
Views to Vote Ratio: 0.8 views per vote
New Audience Percentage: 53.33%

Facebook is undoubtedly a powerful marketing tool, but as you can see, you need to build up a core network of interested people first. My old university classmates and second cousins thrice-removed aren’t interested in liking my blog posts – so it’s left to a handful of people who’ve already seen the post through another medium to spread the message.

I’m loathe to write Facebook off on the basis of one post, but it’s clear that I need to use the platform better.

Should you use Facebook? Yes. Just work harder at creating a network.

Twitter

Twitter is where I focus most of my promoting energies, and on the face of it, it pays off. A tweet gives you an interested reader.

Hits: 72
Average Time on Site: 1 minute, 10 seconds
Number of Votes: 72
Views to Vote Ratio: 1:1
New Audience Percentage: 76.39%

Good old reliable Twitter. No other network I used had a higher average time on the site – which is especially promising when you take into account the fact that the majority of those visitors had never seen Unmemorable Title before. The views to vote ratio is unusually low for the post in question, but analytics shows that it’s usually far higher (This Winning post generated 68 hits from a criminal 16 Tweets).

I’ve always been of the opinion that Twitter is an indispensable tool for network building, due to the simple fact that it will help you create a core group of people who’ll listen to what you have to say and engage with it.

Should you use Twitter? Yes. If you’re following and being followed by the right people, it’s the most reliable way of getting people to read what you’ve written.

Sphinn

An admission. I was one of the people who abandoned Sphinn for SERPd when they moved from a voting to an editorial system. A second admission. I was wrong.

Hits: 361
Average Time on Site: 40 seconds
Number of Votes: N/A (or 1)
Views to Vote Ratio: N/A (or 361 views per vote)
New Audience Percentage: 96.12%

This is the first post I’ve had featured on Sphinn since the time I forced my fiance to use Bing. And the stats speak for themselves. After RSS subscribers and Google, Sphinn is June’s biggest referrer – and an average of 40 seconds per visit means that at least a few hundred people read my post right to the end.

It’s clear. Sphinn provides large amounts of high-quality traffic to your blog.

Should you use Sphinn? Yes. If what you’ve written is good enough to be featured, you should submit it to Sphinn without a second thought.

SERPd

I’m an early adopter over at SERPd, regularly hit the front page, and was one of the first people to guest on the SERPd blog. So the results surprised me.

Hits: 29
Average Time on Site: 4 seconds
Number of Votes: 17
Views to Vote Ratio: 1.7 views per vote
New Audience Percentage: 79.31%

SERPd has over 300 fans on Facebook, but it’s always appeared that the active user base is around about 30 people. This confirms it. But a small user base is no reason to abandon a platform – in fact, it’s an incentive. Get in on the ground floor and you could be a power user.

But it’s apparent that people are just clicking vote without reading the post in question. Only StumbleUpon gives less quality traffic, and that’s an indictment of just how much SERPd’s users engage with content. Chris, Gerard and the team have a lot to work on, it seems.

Should you use SERPd? I’m torn. I like SERPd. I like the sentiment behind it, I like the team, and I like (parts of) the community. But while it’s not attracting the right sort of people, you’re not going to get much out of it.

UPDATE: May 2012 – SERPd is pretty much dead. It’s used only by spammers, and won’t benefit you at all. Steer clear.

StumbleUpon

Ah, I only submit to StumbleUpon out of habit.

Hits: 81
Average Time on Site: 3 seconds
Number of Votes: 11
Views to Vote Ratio: 7.3 views per vote
New Audience Percentage: 100%

And I’m probably going to stop doing even that.

StumbleUpon doesn’t deliver any sorts of meaningful traffic. The site itself is designed to funnel people away from your page, not take them deeper into your site.

Should you use StumbleUpon? No

So, Where Should You Be Promoting Your SEO, Copywriting and Marketing Blog Posts?

Sphinn, Facebook and Twitter.

You may have a hard time promoting straight copywriting posts on Sphinn, but they do cover online marketing topics. But if you’re good enough to pass their stringent quality control, you’ll generate some interest.

Facebook isn’t a magic wand. It won’t deliver traffic if you don’t put the effort in. But I’m certain that if you take the time to build a network through a quality fan page, it’ll pay off in the long run. It certainly does for more famous names like Copyblogger and SEOmoz.

And Twitter should be high on everyone’s agenda. It might not be the most spectacular of platforms, but in terms of effort to payoff, it’s an easy way to spread your message.

But this is just taking one post as evidence. I know many of you have your own successful blogs – so tell us in the comments, where should we be promoting SEO, copywriting and marketing blog posts?

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15 comments

Tom Albrighton says:

Jun 22, 2011

Great post. This pretty much bears out what I’ve found – except I didn’t realise how powerful Sphinn could be. I’ll be submitting there more frequently having read this.

The point about duplication between Twitter and Facebook is key, I think. Subtract a few friends and relations and my Facebook network is just a wizened shadow of my Twitter feed. I don’t post anything especially for Facebook, because I don’t really like the site and never remember to tailor any content for it, bar the odd interesting link. (My theory is that Twitter is more verbal, whereas Facebook is visual, and I think in words rather than pictures.)

I wonder if for me, and maybe for other sole traders, it might be worth knocking Facebook on the head and focusing efforts elsewhere. SEO wisdom says get the social links from that domain, but if all you can achieve is the odd click on the geiger counter, what advantage are you really gaining? I don’t think Google’s going to rank me any higher on the strength of five or six likes.

On SERPd, I guess one point is the incredibly tight focus of the community. Arguably, you’re more likely to get pingbacks, comments or answer posts if you drop the right content on them. But the problem of voting without reading is clearly very real. Votes are aggregated and anonymous – you don’t stake your rep on them the way you do with a Twitter or Facebook share. Therefore, they are cheap – and presumably viewed as such by Google.

Again, great post – thanks for the work you’ve put into it.

Andrew says:

Jun 22, 2011

Glad you enjoyed it Tom.

Sphinn’s always been a strange beast. Even when it worked on the “Digg-method”, it was very rare that anything but the best posts would get any traction. Good posts would have dozens of votes, whereas a poor post would be lucky to get two or three. There was always a clear distinction between what was up to scratch and what wasn’t.

I don’t think there’s the same distinction on SERPd. Almost every post gets between 5 and 15 votes. It’s a rare beast that gets over 20 votes, or just one or two. And a lot of that is due to having a small user base with a few people who’ll vote for anything as a sort of bargain.

As for Facebook – the hype doesn’t meet the reality for everyone but the largest brands or blogs. I think that if you’re serious about it, you should buy adverts. Otherwise, accept that it’s an extension of your Twitter feed and comments section.

That said, I’m perservering with it, especially when it comes to unique content. I’m trying to add the odd bit of exclusive content to my Facebook page, but it’s not getting much traction.

Gerald Weber says:

Jun 22, 2011

Andrew,

We certainly appreciate your support of the SERPd community as you have been a very active member and contributed a lot as well.

That being said I really don’t think it’s fair to make a judgement that SERPd is subpar based on the traffic of a singles post that was submitted.

Sphinn has been around for many years whereas SERPd has only been around for about 9 months now.

Although our users base is approaching 2000 members it’s true that we have a handful of about 30 or so people that are active on the site on a daily basis and we are OK with that. SERPd probably never will be a site that will send tons and tons of traffic and we are OK with that. That’s not what it’s about for us. We are in it for the community.

It’s a niche community and our main goal is to provide a place on the web where users can still utilize the voting model (and ideally find valuable content) in the SEO and internet marketing niche.

I feel Sphinn still has a lot of value to the SEO community as well. We at SERPd simply want to keep the voting model alive.

My personal opinion is people should submit their SEO and internet marketing related content to both sites. (SERPd and Sphinn)

Now when it comes to comparing SERPd or Sphinn for that matter to StumbleUpon and Twitter I feel that’s totally comparing apples and oranges. for one these two websites have received millions in venture capital. Also these two sites are not SEO niche communities. In fact StumbleUpon has been known to have hostility toward the SEO industry.

Andrew says:

Jun 22, 2011

Gerald, thanks for your comment. As I mentioned, I’m a big fan of what you and Chris (and Mark too, I guess) are trying to do at SERPd. And I’m not going to stop submitting my own posts, because I value input from people like you guys, Tad, and other such SERPd regulars.

But I was surprised when I saw just how little high quality traffic SERPd was delivering. And that’s not meant as a criticism of you guys – it’s more of an arched eyebrow in the direction of the community.

Because it looks to me like there are too many people on SERPd who are just clicking vote without reading. As if they’re deciding whether to vote on the strength of a headline.

And that defeats the whole point of what you’re trying to accomplish. I didn’t like Sphinn’s move to content without voting. I’d like SERPd ending up as voting without content even less.

As for StumbleUpon – it’s not just them. Reddit and Digg aren’t SEO fans either.

Gerald Weber says:

Jun 22, 2011

@TOM ALBRIGHTON

“Votes are aggregated and anonymous”

Actually votes on SERPd are not anonymous

Notice in the post right under “Who Voted” you will see everyone who voted on a specific submission.

The Five People You Meet in Online Marketing Hell

Chris Burns says:

Jun 22, 2011

yeah I think it’s quite unfair to try to compare SERPd with these massive sites and then attempt to frame it as being subpar because of the results. If you were to compare with with actual niche sites similar in size and age then I would have nothing to say, but this does seem to be setting it up for a negative review.

Everyone is entitled to their view, but how would you feel if I compared your blog to CNN and then tore you apart for your comparatively low numbers… I suspect you would not like it at all.

I appreciate that you are active on SERPd, and we continue to develop our user base in a controlled fashion, as we learned form the mistakes of Sphinn with regards to Spam.

Andrew says:

Jun 22, 2011

I’d find it strange if you compared this to CNN Chris. But if you compared it to, say, Copyblogger and said “Unmemorable Title won’t be able to compete with Copyblogger because of this flaw here”, I’d think about it.

I’d call you out on it, the exact same way you have here, but I’d think about it.

I did you guys a disservice by comparing you to Facebook and Twitter. But I think the Sphinn comparison is the only one to make. You guys had a great idea with SERPd, and you’re doing a brilliant job.

I just think if you could address the fact that there’s a chunk of your community that doesn’t engage, you’d be in a position where you’d be meeting sites like Sphinn on equal terms.

Gerald Weber says:

Jun 22, 2011

@Andrew,

Yep I’m well aware Digg.com and Reddit.com hates SEO.

I’ve written about them both in the past.

Why Does Digg.com Hate SEOs

There is Definitely Something Devious Going on Over at Reddit

Tom Albrighton says:

Jun 22, 2011

@Gerald

Sorry, my mistake.

Gerald Weber says:

Jun 22, 2011

@TOM ALBRIGHTON

No worries.

Jason Acidre says:

Jun 25, 2011

Excellent post Andrew. My first time on being featured on Sphinn got me 500+ new visits in a day, and I must say that they are the most high-traffic referrers in this industry (knowing that it’s hard to get on Digg and Reddit’s top page). I am also an avid user of SERPd, and its community is growing fast, which makes it more valuable to Search and blogging-related blogs.

With regards to Stumbleupon traffic, I do agree with you – on most parts – but it’s effective in some ways, especially if the content is specifically built for stumbleupon users (I think they are more fond of rich media content images/infograph/videos as most stumbleupon users have short attention span).

Randy Pickard says:

Jun 27, 2011

Andrew – As you posted in a previous article, “If you can’t rely on the kindness of strangers, you need to take responsibility for promoting your own site”. However, in a best case scenario, have you found a difference in results depending upon whether you post links to Sphinn or SERPd yourself, a “friend” posts them. or the editors find them organically?

Andrew says:

Jun 27, 2011

Randy,

I haven’t noticed any difference when it comes to SERPd, but with Sphinn it appears that if an editor (or any power user, I’d guess) posts the link, it receives far more attention than it would otherwise.