The Best Referral Traffic

by on 09/08/2008 in Social Networking

Many of you may not know, but I am very heavily into Web Analytics and SEO, both for my personal blog and my company. I have tested many social networking sites to see what sites provide the most referral traffic.

Test Process:

  1. Submit a minimum of one new blog entry daily.
  2. Have at least 5 people vote and comment about your blog in each social web site.
  3. Submit your blog to forums that promote social networking.
  4. Run your test for 30 days.
  5. Use Google Analytics to track your progress.

Tips for StumbleUpon requests:

  1. If you’re requesting a Stumble and Review make sure that the person who is stumbling has at least 50 friends or fans.
  2. The more friends and fans a person has the better the traffic your site will receive.
  3. Make sure you provide the tags you want used.
  4. Also provide what category you want your blog post placed in.
  5. Make sure your stumblers indicate it’s not Adult related, if this applies.
  6. Creative and controversial comments capture more attention.

TechJaws writes and submits 2 to 3 blogs daily. It takes one minute to submit to each social network.

2 blogs per day x 4 socials = 8 Minutes per day or 240 minutes per Month. By reducing the amount of social networks to two, I have now saved 120 minutes per Month or 2 hours. Time is money!

The Best Referral Traffic: (30 days: Aug 8 – Sept 7)

Source/Medium Visits Pages/Visit
1. stumbleupon.com / referral
 39,553 1.84
2. reddit.com / referral 4,479 1.05
3. (direct) / (none) 3,406 1.36
4. google / organic 2,486 1.27
5. entrecard.com / referral 737 1.60
6. yahoo / organic 320 1.70
7. digg.com / referral 246 1.24
8. buzz.yahoo.com / referral 164 1.40
9. propeller.com / referral 107 1.21
10. firestormforum.com / referral 105 1.32

I hope this saves you time by knowing what social networks really drive referral traffic.

8 Responses to “The Best Referral Traffic”

  1. Jobin Martin

    Sep 8th, 2008

    Great post
    This is absolutely true. I never tried Stumble Upon, though I have been a member for more than 5 years. I submitted a post to stumble upon just to check the referral traffic. I was so delighted on visiting the blogstats and finding that Stumbleupon sent me 230 visitors within 20 mins.

  2. Frank J

    Sep 8th, 2008

    Jobin,

    Thank you for the testimonial!

  3. Jennifer

    Sep 8th, 2008

    Thanks, that is a great project. I submit to all the same places you do, except firestorm, but don’t follow all your stumble rules. That’s probably why the main difference in my results is that stumbleupon is definitely lower on my list than yours. My top 3 by far are Entrecard, Reddit and Google search. Then much lower down are stumble, propeller and buzz.yahoo but enough that its worth doing. Digg is so little I don’t always submit every post.

    I guess I need to work harder on stumbleupon.

  4. Frank J

    Sep 8th, 2008

    Firestorm was a forum where you can submit your blogs to the various social forums, but not everyone plays fair. Yahoo Buzz and Digg are not worth my time any longer so it’s Stumbleupon, Reddit and Propeller, though I am testing Propeller still. I have used Mixx, Seachles, Mister Wong, Bloglines and so many more and they did no justice for traffic.

  5. The Raging Tech

    Sep 8th, 2008

    Frank! I’m so glad to see TJ is getting tons of traffic still. I knew you would be successful with this site. Also, like the redesign! Hope everything is well.

  6. Frank J

    Sep 8th, 2008

    Hey stranger!

    I appreciate the compliments and hope all is well with you. I read your last 4 or 5 blogs and it looks like you have your hands full.

    Stay in touch!

  7. Stephen Baugh

    Sep 8th, 2008

    I think this is so true about stumbleupon. I however got into trouble and my account temporarily deactivated by them. Evidently it is against their Terms of Use to self submit. They track the number of times you promote a single site. They did reactivate after a little hand slap :-)

    Just a heads up.

    Cheers
    Stephen

    PS I just wrote a post on how to check who reviews you … you might find this useful.

    http://www.stephenbaugh.com/blog/2008/09/how-to-see-who-reviewed-you-on-stumbleupon/

  8. bernie kasper

    Sep 10th, 2008

    Stumble drives nearly all my traffic, it’s not a great number but for my blog it does great !!