Today I managed to work out that for every link that you get in a blog post, you’ll get 478% more conversions than getting a list in the comments following a blog post. I love taking a set or list of data and being able to use it to deduce something new.
Funnily enough, I got the research data after Kevin Gibbons listed 10 UK Search Marketing People You Should Know (on Twitter). Almost immediately, Rishil added a few other names in the comments. (Rishil is my new best friend for mentioning me). I saw the post pretty early on, before it got well and truly Sphunn and figuring that it would go hot I went through everyone’s Twitter profile to see how many followers they had. Then – just now – I went through the same list 24 hours later and recorded their new follower count. With the exception of one “outlier” listed at the bottom, I could see the difference in sign-ups between those listed in the main post and those listed in the comments. On average – over the 24 hour period – the main posters increased their followers by 43, whilst those in the comments increased their followers by 9. So the post links were nearly 5 times more valuable in terms of “conversions” than the comment links.
Whilst the way of generating this data is a little “off the wall” I think it stands up reasonably well as a way to measure. On its own you couldn’t call it scientific, because during that time people may have followed for other reasons, but that back ground noise will only server to up 478% a little – so rounding still end up with a five times increase.
So now you know – something to tell your clients. Getting cited in a blog post is five times more valuable than being cited in a blog comment – given that the citations are similar in context.
Top UK Search Bloggers on Twitter
| Twitter Name Listed | Follower Increase | Blog URL |
| https://twitter.com/DaveNaylor | 52 | https://davidnaylor.co.uk |
| https://twitter.com/JonDMyers | 46 | https://jonmyers.co.uk |
| https://twitter.com/AndrewGirdwood | 46 | https://blog.arhg.net |
| https://twitter.com/patrickaltoft | 49 | https://blogstorm.co.uk |
| https://twitter.com/ciaranj | 41 | https://ciarannorris.co.uk |
| https://twitter.com/kevgibbo | 41 | [fixed] https://seoptimise.com |
| https://twitter.com/MelCarson | 35 | https://melcarson.com |
| https://twitter.com/willcritchlow | 46 | https://distilled.co.uk/blog |
| https://twitter.com/evilgreenmonkey | 29 | https://evilgreenmonkey.com |
| Average Increase | 43 | |
| Listed in comments: by https://www.twitter.com/rishil | ||
| https://twitter.com/tomcritchlow | 8 | https://distilled.co.uk |
| https://twitter.com/Dixon_Jones | 13 | https://dixonjones.com |
| https://twitter.com/lyndoman | 12 | https://cornwallseo.com/search |
| https://www.twitter.com/andyheaps | 6 | https://latitudegroup.com |
| https://twitter.com/robwatts | 6 | https://yackyack.co.uk |
| Average Increase | 9 |
(List via 10 UK Search Marketing People You Should Know.)
Notes on the analysis:
Excluded from data analysis: https://twitter.com/Jimconnolly who increased by 418 followers, but with 17,513 followers he kinda skewed results! Jim… while I am here… that’s WAY too many.
22 Comments
Peter Young · 8th January 2009 at 8:06 pm
Interesting to see the analysis coming off the back of the Dixon (Apologies for not putting you on – alongside Lyndon you were on the Shortlist 12 (and then not on the final 17 odd – not sure what happened :))
Counted around 50 additional followers to my Twitter account following the above mentioned post and just short of 500 visitors in just over two hours.
From a personal level – I hadnt seen Twitter in action from that perspective – but it has certainly highlighted the potential. Now for the US 🙂
Gary Robinson · 8th January 2009 at 8:31 pm
That’s interesting, Dixon. I read that article – it’s how I found your twitter profile. Happy to have contributed to your 13.
Gary – aka https://twitter.com/garyr0binson
Kevin Gibbons · 8th January 2009 at 9:28 pm
That’s interesting to see, I wondered how many Twitter emails I had to delete yesterday! Might be a few more if this post hits the homepage: http://sphinn.com/story/96020
And while I’d like to take credit it was Pete Young’s post – I just submitted to Sphinn. Any chance of swapping my link to SEOptimise too (sorry Ciaran!) 😉
Singapore SEO · 9th January 2009 at 5:21 am
So if that is the case, then I have to comment 5 times at your blog. 😀
Paris · 9th January 2009 at 9:07 am
Interesting blogpost…I was just wondering the exact importance of every link building strategy, realizing comparisons…well, it’s not scientific, but useful 🙂
Dixon Jones · 9th January 2009 at 9:19 am
Hey – I’m just glad to have been in the comments Peter! 🙂
Yep – I fixed that link. So sorry Kevin.
Singapore – I think that if the content in the comments is as valuable as the content in the original post, then yes… but I think that probably gets diluted on busy blogs. Mine’s nice and quiet, and because I have DoFollow I tend to be a bit vicious with comment culling to compensate. The post I tested on, Rishil more or less was the first comment and added to the post. Lee Odden (I think) did a much larger list a while back… must have 500 people adding their name now!
James Poole · 9th January 2009 at 9:33 am
I posted in the comments over there quite early on and seem to get a big increase
http://www.twitter.com/jp135
Andrew Girdwood · 9th January 2009 at 9:47 am
Good spot of research. Thanks!
I was surprised when Pete included me… and let me tell you it feels like a lot more than ~50 new followers! Eeep.
Peter Young · 9th January 2009 at 10:51 am
Thanks again for the Sphinn Kev, it seems to have done very well 🙂
BTW Congrats on getting in the to the ‘35+ Blogs that are worth your attention‘
robwatts · 9th January 2009 at 11:56 am
Interesting stuff Dixon, thanks for sharing, looks pretty solid, although Pete borked my twitter link so maybe that’s why I only received 6 😉
On a related note, have you checked out twitter-friends.com? pretty cool.
Mel Carson · 9th January 2009 at 12:49 pm
I’ve now had 60 more followers since that post – Thanks Pete!
Isn’t it interesting the conversion rate as you go down the list of people in order.
The amount of followers gained is almost exactly the same as the list order which is just like search conversions by rank.
I…..LOVE……THIS…….INDUSTRY!!!!
Mel Carson · 9th January 2009 at 12:51 pm
And Dixon, thought you were going to enter my new year’s competition?
http://www.melcarson.com/new-year-competition-win-im-a-pc-t-shirt-stickers.html
Joe Connor · 9th January 2009 at 1:15 pm
Dixon, you need to make some new years resolutions about this sort of thing and get out more, HNY dude 🙂
Chris Angus · 21st January 2009 at 11:42 pm
I fell out of love with comment posting for link love, I was not sure that any PageRank was even flowing from the comments. I think it’s too easy for goog to just cast a sweeping ban on blog comments as they have been abused to death.
Cheap link building services: When does cheap become expensive? | Wiep.net · 29th January 2009 at 7:24 pm
[…] never get found by search engines. Blog comments (whether they’re dofollow or nofollow) do not pass the same amount of juice as blog post links and most other FFA links hold little to no value as […]
Power of Twitter,WOM and Blogging | Holistic Search Marketing | Internet Marketing Consultants · 22nd February 2009 at 9:05 am
[…] I did a post a while back on 10 UK Search Marketers you should be following, and given its been over a month since that post was written, I thought it would be interesting to see the effects of new followers in terms of some of those people included within the piece (as a follow up I guess to Dixon Jones (@receptional – and highly worth following for those that aren’t) piece – A Blog Link is worth 5X a Comment Link. […]