Google Hits Remain a Sucker’s Game
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a thing for Palate Press offering unsolicited advice to wine bloggers. One of my more controversial assertions was that depending on wine reviews for traffic was a loser’s game, since search engine traffic is flighty and less valuable than loyal readers.
Here’s digital media Yoda/respected journalist Felix Salmon making the same point about economics blogs:
But in an era of essentially unlimited (content) inventory, creating vast amounts of new inventory in order to increase CPM-based revenues is not an obvious road to riches — I’ve called it “a junk-mail paradigm which benefits no one”, and no, that’s not just the view of a naive editorial-side person without business-side experience: it’s also the view of Jim Spanfeller. If your pageviews become less valuable, falling (revenues per thousand page views) can mean lower revenues even on higher traffic.
Jim Spanfeller is the former CEO of Forbes.com, chairman emeritus of the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Treasurer of the Online Publishers Association. He knows a thing or two about squeezing value out of websites. And he’s no big fan of random traffic:
We now know that 16% of web users generate 80% of clicks and that this 16% represents the lower income and education segments of the total user base. Do we really want to be held accountable as an industry by metrics generated by the lowest common denominator and a minority of users to boot? I can’t think of too many successful models using these types of metrics…These metrics drive the conversation and the core objectives of online advertising away from demand creation (which is basically the definition of advertising) to demand fulfillment or, put another way, direct response.
That’s why so many wine blogs are tilting toward a review it/sell it model of monetization. That’s the model that drives Gary Vaynerchuck on Wine Library TV and dozen’s of other retailer-driven blogs, and it’s creeping more and more into “independent” blogs. It is unfortunately a model that calls into question the honesty of every single wine review offered. Is the review truthful, or is it just offered because there’s money to be made moving inventory?
Assuming the goal is to create a sustainable, content-driven blog, the name of the game is readership, not traffic. That means producing content that is inherently interesting and will attract a regular audience (Vaynerchuck got that part right) instead of just search engine traffic.
It is, of course, every blogger’s right to publish whatever they like, and every blogger has a different goal. But we would do well to remember the evolution of email advertising, once thought to be a key driver of future Internet profits. Page views in blogging are the equivalent of open rates in email, and in the last decade opens rates have dropped from 3% to 1% to 0.02% to almost nothing, as spam filters grow more adept at keeping advertisements out of our mailboxes. Email marketing has become a game of numbers so large the only people who can play it are off-shore spammers one step ahead of the law.
Page views is going the same way, and chasing them is a game in which the vast majority of wine bloggers can realize no value for their work.
March 31st, 2010 at 9:32 PM
What do you think is the right metric? Ad buyers will want to see some number that indicates how many eyes will see their ad, assuming the buyer is sufficiently evolved to not be obsessed with click-through.
I too have concerns with the “read my review and buy the wine from me” stuff.
March 31st, 2010 at 10:40 PM
The short answer is: I don’t know. I think there’s not going to be a single universal metric, but more complicated formulations based on the goals of the site.
I frankly haven’t thought a lot about ad-driven models, and every time I think a little about them my head starts to hurt. I’m really starting to think that the future of serious, high-quality content has to be some kind of subscription model.
The other option is to use a blog as a promotional tool to empower, for want of a better word, fame. Small fame, perhaps, within a small subculture, but fame nonetheless. In our culture, fame can be turned into revenue via outside endeavors: books, consulting, speaking or, if you’re Paris Hilton, nightclub appearance fees.
On LouJu, I watch number of visits, repeat visits, time-on-site, and the percentages of people who come in via search engines, directly and by link. I want the direct numbers to be high, I love the links, and ignore the search engine hits. I also pay a lot of attention to comments. Everything is in need of improvement.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:42 PM
I’m trying to parlay blog fame into sleeping with Tiger Woods. Once I’ve got that/him in the bag, then I can hire Gloria Allred and sell my story to The Daily Sleeze. I should make enough to pay someone to open all of the death threat mail I’ll get from his caddy.
Failing that, there’s various types of ads, paid listings, e-commerce, and freelance writing. And dog-walking.
The concerns about focusing on uniques and page views makes sense. But, the number of blogs continues to grow also, so there’s increasing competition for dedicated eyeballs as well. And the subscription model hasn’t really worked for anyone except Parker and possibly Tanzer and Jancis yet. It will only get worse as mainstream press dives headfirst into online. I think subscriptions for an individual’s blog is virtually hopeless. (I use the word “virtually” to avoid seeming negative.)
Search engine hits are good for me, because of the winery and event listings. I’m looking for the incidental traveler as well as the committed reader. Speaking of committed readers, asylums could provide captive audiences!