The Jeckyl and Hyde of Tagging for Traffic
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The Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde of Tagging for Traffic
The Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde of Tagging for Traffic
Story Text:
As many of you know I play pretty heavily in the blogosphere, and I've also been playing with tagging. If you don't know what "tagging" is or why it's important read Nick's primers Tags & Folksonomies - What are they, and why should you care? and Folksonomies and Tagging hit the Mainstream Press.
Basically tagging is a way that a blog author can tell services like technorati and icerocket what the post is about. Most blog search engines have some sort of tag search functionality built in. The opposite side of the coin is user tagging with services like del.icio.us. The user finds a page they like bookmark it in del.icio.us and add tags to the listing. See how in this example from John Udell (warning link has audio).
So now that we know what tagging is, how it works, and what can be done with it, you'll want to know how can it help you as a search engine marketer drive traffic, build brand awareness and ultimately make a profit. First the bad news it doesn't work in most sectors. Typically SEO playgrounds like credit cards, mortgages, pills, hosting, communications, electronics, and health and fitness are pretty much useless for generating traffic from tagging. In fact I can count the number of referrals I've gotten from keywords like that without having to take off my socks. However if you are willing to embrace pop culture subjects, you really can get decent traffic from tagging. Some areas that have worked well for me are entertainment, TV, movies, music, celebrities, and sports. People actually use blog search engines to search for tags about Jessica Simpson, Harry Potter, or Star Wars. In many cases you can drive hundreds of people per day, without Google, Yahoo or MSN.
So how do you go about finding what people are looking for, the best place to start is with tag clouds. Yea I know Nick thinks they are lame and complete bullocks, and I have to agree. However if you are a traffic whore then you follow the traffic. The Technorati tag page is one place to start, the bigger and bolder the type the more active the tag is, another one is the My Yahoo tag cloud. Something you should know about this traffic, it's very ephemeral (lasts a short time). Remember the double edge sword of pop culture is forged from instant gratification and fickle short attention spans.
Now that you've got the traffic what can you do with it? Typically affiliate type stuff converts pretty poorly. The only exception is laser precise targeting (think an Amazon link to a Harry Potter book on a Harry Potter page). You can try adsense but unless there is a big pool of advertisers, even with some nice double digit CTR's you'll probably only make $10-$20 a day on a good day. Your best bet is to find a nice CPM advertiser. There is a little problem with CPM advertisers, they don't want you unless you already have the traffic. You won't invest the time building a site and getting traffic unless you can monetize it right away, so it's the classic catch-22. My advice limp along with adsense until you can qualify to join a CPM program.
The last thing about tagging, for it to work it has be constant. Ranking a chronologically biased algo isn't hard, you just have to remember to post/tag often (but not too often).
As many of you know I play pretty heavily in the blogosphere, and I've also been playing with tagging. If you don't know what "tagging" is or why it's important read Nick's primers Tags & Folksonomies - What are they, and why should you care? and Folksonomies and Tagging hit the Mainstream Press.
Basically tagging is a way that a blog author can tell services like technorati and icerocket what the post is about. Most blog search engines have some sort of tag search functionality built in. The opposite side of the coin is user tagging with services like del.icio.us. The user finds a page they like bookmark it in del.icio.us and add tags to the listing. See how in this example from John Udell (warning link has audio).
So now that we know what tagging is, how it works, and what can be done with it, you'll want to know how can it help you as a search engine marketer drive traffic, build brand awareness and ultimately make a profit. First the bad news it doesn't work in most sectors. Typically SEO playgrounds like credit cards, mortgages, pills, hosting, communications, electronics, and health and fitness are pretty much useless for generating traffic from tagging. In fact I can count the number of referrals I've gotten from keywords like that without having to take off my socks. However if you are willing to embrace pop culture subjects, you really can get decent traffic from tagging. Some areas that have worked well for me are entertainment, TV, movies, music, celebrities, and sports. People actually use blog search engines to search for tags about Jessica Simpson, Harry Potter, or Star Wars. In many cases you can drive hundreds of people per day, without Google, Yahoo or MSN.
So how do you go about finding what people are looking for, the best place to start is with tag clouds. Yea I know Nick thinks they are lame and complete bullocks, and I have to agree. However if you are a traffic whore then you follow the traffic. The Technorati tag page is one place to start, the bigger and bolder the type the more active the tag is, another one is the My Yahoo tag cloud. Something you should know about this traffic, it's very ephemeral (lasts a short time). Remember the double edge sword of pop culture is forged from instant gratification and fickle short attention spans.
Now that you've got the traffic what can you do with it? Typically affiliate type stuff converts pretty poorly. The only exception is laser precise targeting (think an Amazon link to a Harry Potter book on a Harry Potter page). You can try adsense but unless there is a big pool of advertisers, even with some nice double digit CTR's you'll probably only make $10-$20 a day on a good day. Your best bet is to find a nice CPM advertiser. There is a little problem with CPM advertisers, they don't want you unless you already have the traffic. You won't invest the time building a site and getting traffic unless you can monetize it right away, so it's the classic catch-22. My advice limp along with adsense until you can qualify to join a CPM program.
The last thing about tagging, for it to work it has be constant. Ranking a chronologically biased algo isn't hard, you just have to remember to post/tag often (but not too often).
- Y! MyWeb
Great Post!
Personally i've found more value (not that i've tried your methods gw) in using tags to create links and buzz around a site, or more specifically, a given post.
They're a great way to get a new blog kicking....
problem
I hear you on the benefits of brining new traffic in but it annoys me know end to think that I've got to tag things left, right and center for different services to get the traffic. Some of my new bloggers are tagging with some decent results but its a bloody lot of work when your writing multiple sites and putting together sometimes 2 or 3 thousand words a day. For a moral point as well since when did a search company relying on users for their results become a decent business model? Should the Technorati's of this world be investing in search that relys on searching out content? On a side note as well if I was a spam blogger I'd be tagging away, any thing that relies on user input will surely be abused over time.
I don't see the moral issue
There are clear benefits for all parties involved in tagging.
The site owner gets traffic
Users get to share in a central place
The search engine gets rewarded for maintaining the data
Where is the dilemma in that ?
As far as building a buzz I completely agree. I am new to blogging and tags, but I have been trying it on for size over the last 2 monthes and its awesome.
I think a more important thing though is tags allow us to find our bad ideas faster. If I get an idea I can deploy it and tag it and follow who likes it immedialty. That feedback has saved me from wasting time on projects people are not interested in or I haven't fully thought through.
Ancient Wisdom
Loot a burning house - Sun Tzu the Art of War
Tagging is shit
It is total shit, it will become worse shit, and you can ignore it, or milk it for what it is currently worth, which is just a bit more than effort. It appeals mainly to bloggers, and they don't have any damn money to begin with so they pretend to be appalled at the very idea of making money. ROI is extremely low and will get worse. It is not mainstream, and it won't become mainstream because the guardians are anal nerds that think tagging is sacred, or some such shit, much like they think "citizen journalism" is important. Yes indeed, just like "man in the street" interviews are important.
Face it, most people don't give a rip about what you have to say. Me, you, YOU, them. Whatever. Words are cheap, supply exceeds demand. Sell packaged manure cheap enough, and people will buy it to get the packaging material.
In protest, I'm going to shut my blog down, and only allow myself access to public fora and blogs on Friday. Why? Because listening is more important than talking, or blogging, or podcasting. ROFL (podcasting, another "blogism" for "make an mp3"). "Podheads" are most likely "dumb asses".
Every time I see "A-list" I think, "asshole begins with "a". Thank the gods I made enough to retire eh? Without a single freaking "podcast".
I guess I don't understand
because I use it for getting inbound links not the actual traffic.
Keywords
I don't see how tags are much different from keywords. A hundred years ago search engines used keywords for determining site content, then stopped due to abuse (sorry, not a SE expert, but I think I'm pretty close on this).
Dr Seuss
There's a classic story by Dr. Seuss called "The Star Bellied Sneetches" that revolves around a class based society. The sneetches who have stars are "upper class" those who don't are "lower class". An enterprising young chap named Sylvester McMonkey McBean rolls into town with a machine to put stars on the bellies of those who don't for a modest price. Now of course those who had stars are now outraged, but Sylvester has the solution he can remove the stars for a modest price. Now the cycle continues until the sneetches have gone through all of thier money, and realize it doesn't matter if they have stars or not.
Like Sylvester McMonkey McBean it doesn't really matter if I think tagging is the greatest thing since sliced bread or if it's a complete bunch of bullocks. What is important is I know that there is some group of people out there who likes tagging, and that I can find a way to fullfill thier need to read, ruminate or pontificate about it in a space I control and profit from.
C'mon
If you've read your own post you know that there's better ROI out there.
>Something you should know about this traffic, it's very ephemeral
>Typically affiliate type stuff converts pretty poorly.
>You can try adsense but unless there is a big pool of advertisers, even with some nice double digit CTR's you'll probably only make $10-$20 a day on a good day.
>Your best bet is to find a nice CPM advertiser. There is a little problem with CPM advertisers, they don't want you unless you already have the traffic. You won't invest the time building a site and getting traffic unless you can monetize it right away, so it's the classic catch-22. My advice limp along with adsense until you can qualify to join a CPM program.
My advice is to avoid "tagging for traffic" unless you're flat broke. Sounds like a pain in the ass. ;)
Agreed you aren't going to
Agreed you aren't going to make killing tagging for traffic on one website. But hitting 4 singles has the same end result as hitting one home run.
agreed
Got to agree with Digital Ghost, its a complete pain in the arse, and there seems to be some other new site opening up weekly who want you to use their tags. I suppose if they all agreed on some sort of standard tagging system it wouldnt be so bad......but hold on a sec: wasn't that what Metatags were meant for?
wordpress
Am I missing something, when I tag I use this bookmarklet I have it in my browser toolbar and takes all of 15 seconds. Both you and DG seem to be using wordpress. I haven't used wordpress so can't say anything but is that where the difficulty come from?
Cafepress, tags and affiliate programs.
Cafepress is now using tags for their new search - which is still in beta. People using cafepress have to add tags to their images and those tags are what the search is based on. Seems too vunerable to spamming to me. Although they now have a limit to the number of tags per image (20), but people who added more originally get to keep the extra. They believe it will work out because their search will also rank designs higher based on if they sell well or not.
Sorry, that might be a bit off topic, but it's another example of a place using the concept of tags - and cafepress is starting up an affiliate program soon, which some here may be interested in.
no standard :-(
yes it's pretty annoying that you have to link to technorati to get a post into technorati.
meanwhile, aren't all these sites technically free-for-all links pages?
you don't have to link to
you don't have to link to technorati for the tag to count (see the help file) you can link like this to any other website or to your own.
Now as far as technorati being slow as molases in winter in getting things indexed, thats a whole different story.
Actually, i believe you can
Actually, i believe you can ping technorati to get a post in there Andy. I used to do it when we had trackback enabled.
just be careful you don't
just be careful you don't ping them too frequently, I've had 2-3 delisted after I stepped up my pinging, to try to overcome the slowness on their end