Google traffic is like spam

One of the biggest myths in blogging today is that Google traffic is vital. Google traffic is not only non-vital but expensive too. The problem is that Google traffic is like an addictive drug and once hooked it is very hard to get free.

Google traffic is like spam!

Google traffic, even at it's best, is very low quality. The higher the rate of traffic, I suspect, the lower the quality. In my post "How to Scientifically Identify Your Best Traffic Sources" the numeric analysis of traffic to LordMatt.co.uk showed a very low Quality Index (QI) for Google traffic.

In exposing this fact two things happened.

1. I was largely ignored. After all clearly Google is "too big to fail" and "the daddy" so this Matt fellow must be off his rocker. Right?

2. I was attacked by those that couldn't grasp the enormaty of what I was saying. Surely, they argued that some terms cost $3 a click tells you something? It tells me that Google is monitising the lazy and the stupid most effectively.

For many bloggers the pie chart of traffic sources would show Google as somewhere between a third and four fifths of all traffic. Using LordMatt.co.uk an example I showed that the conversion per hundred for organic Google traffic was an estimate 0.28 people. Yet a well written squidoo lens might expect to see 7.36 people per hundred "converting" (buying, clicking, signing up, commenting or whatever you are set up to ask visitors for).

Why is this?

The number one thing that SEO advocates never tell you is that ranking first for a keyword is going to bring you unfocused traffic. Sure you might get 300 to 400 extra visitors for your effort but that only amounts to a single extra lead.

What most people tell you is the shear volume of traffic that you might get from Google. Google is, after all, a broker for people who don't know what they want or can't find it. So when Google sends you visitors they are not looking for you, they are not necessarily looking for what you offer and they are not-at-all ready to carry out an action for you.

You do, however, get a lot of them. This feels like success. After all, the more people you can get the better... right?

This is the principle of spamming. Send out enough emails, fake trackbacks, fake comments, fake referrals or fake wiki content and you are going to get clicks. Get enough clicks and you will get people to buy.

We have been conditioned to apply this approach to search engine rankings. Optimise to rank for this keyword with so many thousand searches and your top ranking will get you the lions share of that traffic.

Here is a question: what makes you think that those searchers are actually going to be interested in your page? After all the chances are that it was written for Google with people as a secondary consideration.

This huge volume of traffic is, despite it's size, no more profitable than the far smaller slices of the pie - interactions of Twitter where you spent time building up a relationship or clicks through from your profile on some social media site.

Therefore the cost to action ratio in terms of server resources and bandwidth are unprofitable.

It is a myth that success comes through getting a good Google ranking. Those not too blind to see it will do significantly better than those who cannot or will not open their eyes tot he fact that Google is like crack for your stats - it makes them feel good but it burns out your bandwidth and server resources to do so.

In the coming weeks I am going to be looking at the idea of sacking Google (and Yahoo and the rest) and by doing so increasing the quality of traffic. The only metric that matters is the number of successful outcomes your site enjoys each day be that sales, comments or subscribers. All the rest is smoke and mirrors.

Source:
http://lordmatt.co.uk/item/1368/