Since working at Compendium (a total of 2 months now), I'm beginning to see several common themes, questions, debates, misconceptions and conversations between the social media world and the seo world. One of the most common discussions I've heard between the two sides is the notion of "the repeat visitor".
What I mean by this is social media lovers often believe that the majority of business blog readers are loyal fans who keep coming back for more - a repeat visitor. However, here at Compendium Blogware we track metrics for over 400 client blogs and notice that the majority of traffic to a blog is from new, unique visitors.
In order to clear up the myth, Compendium partnered with a few social media and SEO gurus, Jason Falls, Debbie Weil and Jay Baer and conducted a survey with 266 companies addressing various questions about their social media usage and visitors.
The results?
So what does this mean? Well, from a writer's perspective it definitely means that you can't assume your readers know who you are, what your business provides, or will understand any references you make from earlier posts or previous topics you've written about. You need to make sure you are writing your content in a way that would answer the questions a searcher was looking for when running across your blog in the search engine results. This also means you can re-use content! If you had a great post last year about the benefits of your product that you were able to see great traffic from, don't be afraid to re-use it since most of your readers will be seeing it for the first time.
This is a great best practice to use when writing a post. After a post is complete, ask yourself the following four questions:
1. Did I use relevant keywords or phrases that my target audience would type in a search querry if they had a question about my product or service
2. Did I establish who I am, what company I worked for or the product or solution I provide?
3. Based on the keywords I chose to focus on in my post, did I provide answers to the questions my reader was searching for?
4. Did I provide next steps for the reader to take action in order to learn more or even purchase the product or service I provide that solves their problems?
By asking these questions, you'll be able to cover your bases when making sure you are not assuming that the people reading your blog are long-time followers. You will in fact, be providing the needed information a new visitor would need in order to make a decision as to weather or not they would like to become a loyal customer.
Read the full Compendium Survey Results.
What I mean by this is social media lovers often believe that the majority of business blog readers are loyal fans who keep coming back for more - a repeat visitor. However, here at Compendium Blogware we track metrics for over 400 client blogs and notice that the majority of traffic to a blog is from new, unique visitors.
In order to clear up the myth, Compendium partnered with a few social media and SEO gurus, Jason Falls, Debbie Weil and Jay Baer and conducted a survey with 266 companies addressing various questions about their social media usage and visitors.
The results?
Two-thirds of respondents reported over 80% of blog traffic comes from first-time visitors.
So what does this mean? Well, from a writer's perspective it definitely means that you can't assume your readers know who you are, what your business provides, or will understand any references you make from earlier posts or previous topics you've written about. You need to make sure you are writing your content in a way that would answer the questions a searcher was looking for when running across your blog in the search engine results. This also means you can re-use content! If you had a great post last year about the benefits of your product that you were able to see great traffic from, don't be afraid to re-use it since most of your readers will be seeing it for the first time.
This is a great best practice to use when writing a post. After a post is complete, ask yourself the following four questions:
1. Did I use relevant keywords or phrases that my target audience would type in a search querry if they had a question about my product or service
2. Did I establish who I am, what company I worked for or the product or solution I provide?
3. Based on the keywords I chose to focus on in my post, did I provide answers to the questions my reader was searching for?
4. Did I provide next steps for the reader to take action in order to learn more or even purchase the product or service I provide that solves their problems?
By asking these questions, you'll be able to cover your bases when making sure you are not assuming that the people reading your blog are long-time followers. You will in fact, be providing the needed information a new visitor would need in order to make a decision as to weather or not they would like to become a loyal customer.
Read the full Compendium Survey Results.
I wanted to share a turn around story on my blog to help inspire business bloggers out there that it's never too late to turn your blog program around. Many people struggle with generating enough content to sustain their blog and increase traffic. Often times, after making several failed efforts to create content, clients will just completely give up on their blog. But that doesn't have to be your destiny!
t these responses come from companies that see this strategy as a HUGE time commitment. That really is not the case. You can log into Compendium, get prompted with your most valuable key phrases, have endless content ideas delivered right to you, and get real-time feedback on how you're doing as you write your post. 
