Is traffic useful without links?
-
We have many articles on our sites that bring in a large volume of traffic but bring no links.
As an example we wrote an article about the hottest cities in the world. The article brings in over 1000 hits a month on Google and people spend an average of 4 minutes on the page and never return and never link to it.
The article also doesn't bring in business because the company sell Air Conditioning.
From an SEO point of view should we focus any time at all on writing articles that are useful for the internet community that bring in traffic but don't bring in many (any) links?
-
I had a big laugh with your May 2011 entry. These are definately shareable/viral, especially in the hvac community (hvac-talk.com and other forums). You really do need to add share buttons all over the page.
Being a local air conditioner service business, I can sympathize with how dull our content can be. I too get traffic from all over but few links or shares. You should be miles ahead because of your humor (my posts tend to be pedantic). I wouldn't mind sending a link your way in a future blog post.
-
Really appreciate your comments.
-
I would make a temperature chart of the year for lots of big cities, showing on them the "air conditioning season". Post these on your website but more important give them to other air conditioning businesses to post on their website (with their branding and a linkback to you). These would be locked .pdf documents that you produce.
-
Like the EGOL humour plus agree with EGOL 100% here. 100 hits and getting Facebook like is pretty good reward. I assume that you are linking within your site as well to keep people on the site.
And to answer your question you should always try and write articles that are useful to the Internet community but also to you. Socialize the pages as suggested but if you can write this quality on cities I am sure that you can also write it on Air Conditioners.
-
My reactions to this are.....
You are successful.
Slap adsense on those pages to make a little money.
Examine the quality of those pages to determine if they are likable linkable tweetable. How could you change them to make them more sharable?
Maybe your best talents are not in air conditioning? Would your time be better spent writing a website about fun topics?
-
Turn up the heat with the social buttons maybe have set at top and set at bottom, play around with it, have some text pointing to the share buttons 'share with your friends', you get the point.
-
It's funny you mention that, I just noticed that it has brought in 20+ facebook likes / tweet, so maybe not so useless.
-
Put some social tools around the content and try to get visitors to share the article, this will generate social signals which in turn effect SEO.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is it better to have backlinks from domains with medium DA, UR, using same language and good relevancy, or backlinks from domains with high DA, UR but using another language and with less relevancy?
Dear all, while I understand that quality backlinks with high DA, UR, same-language and relevancy would be best, would backlinks with high DA, UR but less relevancy and using languages other than the one used in my website be something good? Or would they do more harm than anything else and still be outcompeted by backlinks with lower DA, UR but same language and/or more relevancy? Thank you Frank
Link Building | | Frank_Smith0 -
Root Domain Link for Affiliate's Link
It seems my affiliate link: http://www.hrmsplugins.com?partners=21 is not being considered as a "root domain" backlink when this link is used on their website. Is there a reason for this?
Link Building | | delphia0 -
What are the pros and cons of using a link builder? Can link building be outsourced?
Hi, I have great content on my website which I would like to build external links to from other websites. I am told this will increase my domain authority and ultimately help search engine ranking positions. I have very limited time in my hands and now thinking of outsourcing the link building component to a specialist. Is this a good way of doing it? Could you recommend professional link builders?
Link Building | | Saunders18650 -
Linking Root Domains V.s Total Links
When analysing a company's inbound links, what is more important to note: The number of linking root domains, or the total number of links? And why?
Link Building | | SEOrookie170 -
Best way to create deep links - Building links to inner pages
I am looking for a cost effective way to rank 30 inner pages, which are all low competition, long tail keywords. What type of links are the best for this type of project, social bookmarks, article marketing, high pr links, etc.... Also who would be good to hire for this type of project?
Link Building | | newcitymoving0 -
How many nofollow links should we build to have a natural link profile
Hi guys, As with many link builders we have been building lots of dofollow links for our site, so many that mainly our incoming links are dofollow. Some pages have 99.5% dofollow external links which I know is not very natural. In your experience in terms of percentage how much should you have in terms of nofollow external links in your link profile. I noticed SEOMoz has about 12-13% nofollow external links, shall I go with this figure? Thanks guys. David
Link Building | | sssrpm0 -
Does anyone use Adgooroo to manage Back links?
One of the top guys here is a friend of Matt Cutts and makes sure your links meet quality tests, etc. Also helps you find quality sites to get links from. I'm sure a lot of you manage links for your clients and and your own site. Any users out there or know of someone who uses it and gives you feed back/ Thanks
Link Building | | joemas991 -
Do you recommend using Mechanical Turk for link building campaigns?
The grunt work of linkbuildign can take a long time. Especially when doing it right. Can Mechanical Turk help me here?
Link Building | | VistageSEO0