Fog of Eternity | Website design and discussion

Less big social networking site spikes means less traffic. But it means more valuable traffic. And it means a better opportunity to analyse the traffic. The value of blog commenting continues to develop. And the traffic potential of Friendfeed is also clear.

Referral traffic is approximately 75% of the site’s total on a normal week. Even on a quiet week StumbleUpon is responsible for just under 40% of those referrals. But it’s clear that the number of referring links is increasing. And Google search traffic has recovered a little after the recent drop off.

Lots of small numbers add up to a much bigger one

32 sites last week brought traffic directly to the site. Take out StumbleUpon and Friendfeed traffic, and around a third of the traffic is made up from a wide selection of sites. Those sites don’t bring massive amounts of traffic on an individual basis, but they add up to significantly more visitors.

Worth noting that a lot of those 32 referrals are directly from blogs. Most particularly the blogs I focus my regular comments towards. Those are generally new visitors as well. The comments are provoking interest on those blogs and making people curious enough to check out the site.

…Though the bounce rates when they check out the site continue to be poor. Even though bounce rates in general still improve marginally.

Further Friendfeed value

I spoke on this at length last week, but think it’s worth highlighting again. Friendfeed traffic is less obvious than other social networking sites. It tends not to spike in the same way. But over a week it all adds up. For the second week Friendfeed was the second highest source of referral traffic.

It can be easy to be surprised when Friendfeed traffic grows. Comments occurring away from a blog make it more difficult to notice when a post has created conversation. A site like Yacktrack can be invaluable for working out what the buzz is about your blog when you notice your traffic spiking.

Biggest bonus = less bouncing

Overall, bounce rates are artificially inflated by StumbleUpon. I’ve talked about this effect before, and the impact is reasonably widely publicised online.

But general traffic to the root page of Fog of Eternity is up. And the root page has seen bounce rates significantly reduced. It’s now well below 70%, and hopefully will continue to improve. That makes a massive difference to long term traffic. It’s also personally pleasing to know that the main page of the site is getting better at grabbing new visitors.

Filed under: Traffic Growth by Robin Cannon

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