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 Twiitter). 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 twiiter 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
(List via 10 UK Search Marketing People You Should Know.)
Notes on the analysis:
Excluded from data analysis: http://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.
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