Happy May, fellow bloggers. It’s time again to crack open our analytics and take a peak at where our traffic is coming from and see how we can optimize our content creation and promotion from those channels. Let’s hop to it!
Each month we look at trends based on Shareaholic’s global publisher network of more than 200,000 publishers who reach more than 270 million people each month. Here’s the most recent breakdown of the top traffic sources for those sites.
Some things you may want to note about our results:
For the third month in a row, Bing grew in market share, narrowing the gap between it and Yahoo. This comes in conjunction with its Google-y redesign.
That said, both Yahoo and Bing are still a very distant second and third compared to Google, but we’ll continue to track this trend and keep you in the loop on our findings.
StumbleUpon picked up some growth in share of traffic again this month. Like we’ve said before, sites such as StumbleUpon, Reddit or Digg can be significant traffic drivers for publishers. But because they lack the shiny new object quality, they seem to be overlooked.What trends did you seen in your analytics this month? Let us know in the comments!
April showers bring May flowers – and some pretty cool data on browser market share based on Shareaholic’s publisher network. Today we bring you a breakdown of the top browsers that sent traffic to more than 200,000 publishers who reach more than 270 million people each month through Shareaholic’s content sharing tools.
First up, here is a breakdown of the top 5 browsers for April 2012 as compared to March 2012.
Chrome is taking names with more than 29% of the market share, providing with Google with an edge on data. Internet Explorer holds the number 2 spot with a little more than 24%, down slightly from March. The big story for last month? Mobile traffic is up and up. Safari, which accounts for iPhone traffic, and Android, both show significant growth. On the heels of a $1 billion acquisition for mobile photo sharing service Instagram by Facebook, all signs continue to indicate that mobile is the future.
A comparison to last April offers even more perspective.
Last April, Internet Explorer held the #1 spot, but has significantly lost market share to Chrome. Firefox was previously at #2 with more than 30% of the traffic, but now sends just over 23%. The explosive story of growth is seen by Android, who owned less than 1% of the market share last year but now dominates more than 3.4% of the market. For context, out of the traffic sent by more than 200,000 websites, 3.4% is many many pageviews. This growth is noteworthy.
For your own website, you can see what browsers are sending you traffic in Google Analytics under Audience/Technology/Browser & OS. It’s important to consider which browsers you must optimize your design for!
What traffic trends have you noticed this month? Let us know in the comments!
Happy May! What better way to celebrate than to offer some startup blogging tips to our fellow startupers.
Spring has somewhat sprung here in Boston, allowing for a couple of short-lived yet glorious moments of blogging on the office roofdeck.
So while the weather is getting warmer and you’re in ever-improving spirits, what better time to think about how to take your startup’s blog to the next level? Measure what you have been doing, change up your same old tired strategy and try something to re-ignite the enthusiasm with your readers. Here are some blogging tips things to think about.
5 Ways to Freshen Up Your Startup’s Blog This Spring
1. Get Your Editorial Calendar in Line
With the anticipation of possible summer vacations and your writing voices taking a couple breaks this summer, now is a good time to get in the habit of keeping an organized editorial calendar if you aren’t already. Plan ahead so you still have content, are still working on your SEO, engaging your audience and driving traffic to key landing pages. Things to consider in your editorial calendar:
What buyer personas are you targeting in each post? Train your readers when to swing by your blog with re-occuring content themes and formats. (SEOmoz’s White Board Fridays are a great example of this.)
What keywords are you targeting in each post?
What calls to action will you use for each post?
Who is writing the post? What is the status of the draft? When is the finished product due?
Sounds like a lot of extra work, right? Actually, it’s a huge sigh of relief to get organized like this and it will make you a lot more excited to blog when you aren’t just thinking up content on the spot and you’re planning ahead for it.
SocialFresh has two guides to editorial calendars that you’ll want to check out, including a template for those of you just starting out with an editorial calendar:
The more voices the merrier! Inviting some fresh perspectives to your blog is a great way to get new ideas written and get your content in front of a new audience. Guest blogging on other blogs is great for link-building and expanding your audience too. Target blogs with a similar audience but a non-competitive products to make the most of your content efforts. Manage the process efficiently by preparing a set of editorial guidelines to cover things such as linking policy, photo policy etc. Setting those expectations at the onset of the relationship makes the content exchange a much more pleasant experience for all involved.
(Sorry. To me, this video just says “take it to the streets” better than any stock photo.)
Consider a meetup with your readers and community! The internet is great, but nothing beats face to face connection. HubSpot’s user groups and Runkeeper’s meetups are two examples of startups who facilitate this really well. Stay posted for news on how Shareaholic getting even more involved in the WordPress and blogging communities this spring and summer.
4. Try More Visual Content
Visual content really works. It’s more shareable to Pinterest, and it gives you an interesting photos to share with your content on your Facebook timeline. In April I tested posting a photo with a link to a blog post against just sharing a link to the content. Posts with the photos got 56% more engaged users (people clicking on the post) than the ones with just the link. It’s not rocket science – people love photos – but you have to think of what photo you will share to your Facebook page to promote the post as you are writing the post itself.
5. Re-focus On the Promotional Channels That Work
Promoting your content is almost as important as writing it in the first place. But anyone who has sat there throwing UTM parameters on links and scheduling social media updates can testify how time-consuming and tedious that process actually is. Before you spend all summer continuing to do this “just because,” check out what channels are actually working! Look at your own referral traffic, and look at your click through rates on the links you share.
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April 2012 Traffic Sources Report: Pinterest Continues to Fall Behind, Bing Gains Market Share
