SEO Egghead by Jaimie Sirovich: A blog about SEO, written for nerds, by a nerd.

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Thu
28
Dec '06

The "Top 1" Reason To Look At Everyone's Web Stats

Everyone is releasing their web stats for 2006.  What the heck -- I will too.  What you have to notice, though, is that everyone who is getting lots of traffic has a few posts that sound like this:

"The Top 10 reasons ... "
"5 Ways To ... "

Hrmm ... I see a trend.  But do you see it, Watson? 

This is something, in fact, I said in "8 ways To Help You Get To Digg's Front Page."  People like lists!

 

Here is the proof that Digg.com can drive major traffic -- it, in fact, is my top referrer:
Digg.com - 43%
Direct - 19%
Google.com - 5%
Hardocp.com - 5%
SeoBlackHat.com - 3%

Now let's look at My top 5 entrance pages:
403 Forbidden: A Geek's Guide To Rejection - 37% (list in disguise)
21 Great Tips From Google's Matt Cutts - 26% (list)
Home Page - 11%
How To Get Dugg More: Digg For WordPress Plugin - 4%
DiggBait 101: 8 Ways To Help You Get To Digg's Front Page
  - 3% (yep, another list!)

Since Mr. Fishkin was so kind as to provide his data, let's look at his top posts:
5 HTML Elements You Probably Never Use (but perhaps should)
How to Ruin a Web Design - The Design Curve
Interviewing Web Developers - 20 Good Questions to Ask
How to Convince a Client Their Site Doesn't Need Music
21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic

Did you notice that 3 out of 5 of his top posts also had a number in it?  Lists are man's best friend when it comes to internet traffic.  Numbers, in general, also seem to catch your eye.  Yes, I do think I see a trend, Watson :)

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One Response to “The "Top 1" Reason To Look At Everyone's Web Stats”

  1. Jumping On The Bandwagon : AIFN stats For 2006 | Am I Famous Now… Says:

    [...] Although I have always been anti memes, memes are very SEO improving. Especially when you link back and ping enough of other bloggers. I will do my best to implement this fact in a near future. And I will try to get into the rythm with the typical End of Year Statistics for this Domain. [...]

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