A targeted influx of traffic

[TimK]

My favorite TV show is Gilmore Girls. (I'm going somewhere with this.) I occasionally blog about Gilmore Girls on my site. I have enough Gilmore Girls content on my site that I've even gotten Google hits on "gilmore girls," which is pretty strange, since my site is not a Gilmore Girls site, and it must be down around page 100 of the search results.

I also listen to the Stars Hollow Podcast, which is my favorite Gilmore Girls podcast. I don't know how big this podcast is, but it's bigger than mine, and only about a month older. So lesson one: If you're passionate about a popular TV show, consider blogging or podcasting about it, as you will find it relatively easy to collect subscribers, at least for as long as the show is on the air.

I submitted an audio comment to the Stars Hollow Podcast, because I love talking about the Gilmore Girls storyline. I could go on and on about the show, but I have to mix things up on my own blog. I even had to edit out lots of what I wanted to say to get the audio comment down to a reasonable size. And they played it. And apparently they were so impressed they linked to my blog in their show notes and personally recommended that the listeners check out my blog.

Oddly enough, this back-link did not and still does not show up in my Technorati search. If I hadn't been listening, I wouldn't have known I was about to get an influx of Gilmore Girls traffic.

And the first thing I thought was, What are they going to see when they get to my blog? They're going to see whatever I've been blogging about, which is good, story-related, original content. But when you buy an AdWords ad, you link to a landing page that gives the visitor exactly what he's looking for. Visitors from the Stars Hollow Podcast are going to be interested in Gilmore Girls, and I should give them something to read. So I threw together a quick mid-day post talking about another storyline that has been hot on the Gilmore Girls podcasts. It's also something my other readers should find entertaining, so I'm not compromising the quality of my blog. But it's something within scope that should strongly appeal to the new visitors. And judging from my traffic logs, it has.

This brings up an interesting issue. In podcasts, audio comments AFAICT get played more frequently than email comments get read on-air. So submitting audio comments to complementary podcasts may be effective PR. Also, high on my list is to produce a 30-second promo. If this promo were played on such-and-such a group of podcasts, and if people listening to those podcasts visited my blog, what would they find? Beforehand, I should prepare one or two relevant posts that I can publish for these visitors.

-TimK

[Blaine Moore]

Great advice; I'll have to give that a go at some point in the near future.

[Yaro]

Hehe, Love it Tim! I'm so impressed you were comfortable enough to profess your appreciate for the gilmore girls tv program so openly AND you have used it to drive traffic.

Your comments about landing pages are quite pertinent. You will note that for example Darren Rowse always does a special blog post landing page whenever he gets some press coverage or is linked to from a major site like Slashdot (example). His landing page is not much more than an introductory post with links to all the most relevant intro blog topics about what he blogs about but it does a lot to make the new user to feel welcome and not overwhelmed or confused from all the different topics.

Blogs may make for good websites over time as an evolving chronology but as a snap shot they are not very good at presenting their information to new users. That is why I include a popular articles section and a clear welcome note on my blog so I maximize the conversion of new readers into regular readers.

Good points Tim!

[TimK]

Thanks for the link to Darren Rowse's blog, Yaro. I read problogger myself, and I don't believe I never noticed that before. I even saw the post you linked to, read right past it in my feed reader. Sheesh! I guess that's a disadvantage of having too many feeds. I miss useful lessons between the lines.

I also really like the idea that one of the purposes of such a post should be to introduce the new visitor to the site and how it works. (Visitors from the Stars Hollow Podcast, of course, already should understand what blogs are and how they work. Still, they may not understand what is the purpose of my blog.)

-TimK

[Aitch]

Interesting thread guys. See, there's more than one way to skin a cat!

I've often thought of all the different methods there must be to get folk arriving my site other than: 'smart 1 bed studio available fore rent in central location' yawn - boring!

The Thai people are very childlike and love to have fun. They're absorbed with local gossip, newsy bits and bobs and as far as chit chat is concerned, well, that’s a national past time.

Unfortunately, the Thai version of my website is just that.........a Thai version (and limited too!) but I know of a few Thai Thai websites that promote accommodation and mix it in with forums, tid bits and heaps of other non property related interactive facilities that keep the Thai visitors playing (for want of a better word) on their pages for absolutely ages. The Thais can't get enough of it!

Alas, I’m unable to read or write Thai to any great degree so I’m not able to join in on the fun.

As far as the English version is concerned, these folks don't want to see anything else other than property related items period. They’re home seekers and that’s it. I’ve tried other Thailand related continent and it was a waste of space.

Great post though TimK and food for thought with other projects.

Aitch

[toad]

I think it would be cool to put some sort of script together that shows a welcome message/post only to new visitors. I agree with Yaro about them being a ‘snapshot’ of a website, so you could help out the newer people.

It could determine if the person is coming from a certain site so you don’t have to bother your regular readers… or you could set a cookie so it only shows up at the top for the first visit.