Google Sends Me 98% Of My Traffic

Written by Thom Allen

Topics: Personal

I was looking through Google Analytics™ web analytics service this morning, and of all traffic sent to my blog from search engines, 98% came from Google. Of course the stats came from Google, so I’m not real sure how skewed the numbers are, but that tells me one thing. If I were to focused on making money with this blog, I would do all I could to make sure I capitalize on the Google way of doing things.

Last week I saw a quote that said if eighty percent of your business comes from twenty percent of your products or services, why are you not focusing more on the twenty percent? Are you willing to get rid of the eighty percent that isn’t producing? If not, why? If eighty percent of my visitors are looking for help with problems, or for the latest Tumblr theme, maybe I should be looking closer at that.

Another interesting fact I noticed, is the search words are for things that I don’t normally talk about, but for some reason my posts make it high enough on the search results that someone clicks through. For example, I have a post about removing sharpie ink from a dry erase board. I wrote that post a long time ago. Its not something I have ever talked about since, but I get a lot of traffic from that post.

The one post I get sear traffic from, by a margin of a 100 to 1, is a post I wrote on a Tumblr theme I created. Its not a spectacular theme, but, interestingly enough, for every 100 hits I get on my site, I get 1000 to this post. I’ve never written about Tumblr themes nor have I created another Tumblr theme since. I should, for all the traffic driven to my site.

So how do I capitalize on this? I’ve heard in the past write more about the things people are visiting your website for. My first thought was I don’t care anymore about the sharpie ink problem. But maybe it’s not so much about the ink problem as it is people are looking for solutions to problems. Now that I can get on bored with.

I’m not an SEO expert, but I would say you can target a lot more of your posts than you are. Think broader. Use a mind map on a topic. I know you can come up with 50 different ways to write how-to’s, or creating solutions to problems, or even related problems. For example, I think I’m going to write a blog post on the abnormal passion people have with Sharpie pens. I’m one of them. I treat them like people. I give them names, have different types, thin, think, gigantic. It’s almost as bad as a passion for Moleskines.

Give me some examples on how you can expand or broaden you existing blog posts.

  • Ann
    It's important to know what kind of readers I want. My Hell's Angels photos consistently rank in the top 5 on my stats. Since they click through to stuff I want my audience to read, that's fine. My "how to wind a ball of yarn" demo doesn't drive traffic to my main goal about US Rte 89.

    I have never recycled my photos, but I am thinking about revisiting some of the more successful ones and telling the behind-the-scenes stories or using them as Photoshop demos.
  • @Sheri, hmm, that's a great question. Not really sure about specific focus, although I'm sure that is the case for some search engines. But I don't think Google works that way.

    MSN and Yahoo for me were about the same. When people think of search, the think of Google, and I can say that just by looking at how people are getting to my site. Personally, I never use Yahoo or MSN. I think people who so use it because its part of their browser and not because they choose Yahoo over Google.

    For me, I would really like to build some type of strategy around those numbers. Even if its not for monetary reasons, but how can I change the dynamics of my content, or can I attract a different set of visitors solely based on my content offerings.

    I should do another Build A Better Blog In 31 Days series again. I've had a large amount of traffic from several posts in that series, specifically Create Catchy Blog Titles That Beg To Be Read.
  • 98% is quite high. Do you think different search engines have a different audience focus? I wonder how much the topics you choose affect which engines bring you traffic. I checked the stats for my (very small) blog and I currently get 84% of search engine traffic from Google, but I was also intrigued to see that I get more traffic from MSN/Live than I do from Yahoo. Interesting to note that those measuring the digital world say that Google gained 1.1% market share in August 2008 to reach 63%.
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