2 builders who never spoke to each other

Expect the first traffic from social, not search

A newer site gets almost nothing from organic search, with aggregators, the mailing list, reshares and links from other publications supplying nearly all of it. Promoting each piece across a few well-chosen accounts is also what produces the first inbound links, which is what search rankings eventually get built from.

The method

1. 01

   Don't assume search is where blog readers come from; for a newer blog the traffic arrives via news aggregators, your own mailing list, people resharing on social, and inbound links from other publications.

2. 02

   Promote each new piece on social before you expect anything from search, because the first organic links come from social visibility.

What it returned

• 607,256

  Justin's blog: 607,256 unique visitors and 1,028,398 pageviews across two years, of which organic search supplied only 4.29%. Named aggregators were Hacker News, Reddit and Flipboard.

• Rand Fishkin notes a few dozen well-chosen posts across networks drive the visits that turn into links, that content marketing was the top use among his in-house subscribers, and quotes Ross Simmonds on knowing where to distribute being the real advantage.

Sources

• Do people still read blogs?Justin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · Do people still read blogs? · undated
• Six Ways SparkToro's Early Customers Use Our Product - SparkToroRand Fishkin · sparktoro.com · Using SparkToro for Social Media & Content Marketing · undated