Damn, damn, this traffic jam…
This weekend, I was snooping around my Google Analytics to see how traffic to my websites was doing. In the early days, I checked quite frequently. But, most of my sites are on “auto-pilot” at this point, as they are fairly well optimized. I average about 100 visitors a day to my primary website. The first graph (see below) is a typical pattern. The vertical axis goes from 0 at the bottom to 200 at the top. The middle is 100. So here you can see that it hovers around 100.
Something funny happened on the way to September
But, on this occasion (the month of August), I noticed the usual graph pattern had changed significantly. At first glance, it looked like my traffic went to nearly zero! Very flat! GULP! And, there was a singular spike at the end of the month. See below:
But, upon closer inspection, I noticed the scale of the vertical axis had changed. Turns out it was to accommodate the spike. My daily average was about the same as usual. But, the scale was now from 0 at the bottom to 3,000 at the top. The middle line represents 1,500. Holy cow! What’s going on here??? The spike represented 2,378 visitors on August 24th. I’ve never had that many visitors in a day. Heck, for most dental websites, that would be a good month!
Using my Google-Analytics-Fu, I looked for the source of all this traffic. It turns out it was coming from a website called Gizmodo.com. From what I recall, it’s a website for electronics geeks. So, why on earth would that website be sending me a big spike of traffic? I looked further into it and found an article on that website:
OK… an article about dental technology. That’s not so mysterious. But, I wondered if the article was written by someone I know and placed a link to my site. Nope. I scrolled down and found the “culprit” in the very first post in the comments section.
The link in the comment is truncated, but it goes to my webpage about cavities. I have no idea who “bleekeh” is. But, I guess techno-geeks and their friends are interested in photos of cavities. And, the way “bleekeh” introduces the link is compelling if just not curious.
So, does this help me or my practice? Probably not. Does it help my SEO? Probably not. But, then again, Google knows EVERYTHING about EVERYBODY. Do I suggest you spam comment sections on popular sites? No! People hate spam links. In this case, the commenter posted a link relevant to the article. So, people clicked on it.
But, again, I don’t think this will lead to any increased business. On the other hand… so what? I think it’s interesting and may spark other ideas and conversations.
Keep on rockin’ Dental Warriors!
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Whether the link is hard-coded or not, the article, re-growing decayed teeth is a fine example of social media, where links for SEO are secondary to the numbers of visitors to your site. And I wouldn’t dismiss all that seemingly non-qualified traffic out of hand. Since Gizmodo is widely read by people all over the country, and should the link stay in place as it likely will, the resulting visits to your website could potentially convert a local site visitor into a patient. Just a single patient would more than cover your cost – wait, scratch that – you have no cost!!! Free advertising from a free article (and a free link) on a website with oodles of daily site traffic. Hey you lucky dog, where can I get my own ‘bleekeh guy.’ 🙂
John Barremore
Houston, TX
Thanks for your comments, John… my own “go-to” guy on questions related to SEO. (See there? I’m your “bleekeh” guy!)
Yeah.. there’s always that chance that a local-yokel will read it, click the link, and realize I’m the best dentist EVER. 😉