Wednesday, June 06, 2012

The Keys to Blog Traffic: Virgins, Porno, Rape, and Nymphos

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  It's just that this kind of thing makes me shake my head sometimes - and smile.  Four posts that I made here on Book Chase between November 2007 and February 2012, based on number-of-hits received, consistently rank in the monthly top 10 of the 1,893 total posts made since I began Book Chase on January 20, 2007.

Why did that catch my eye?  Because they have a lot in common - mainly that the four books featured in those posts apparently include very popular Google search terms in their titles: Nympho Librarian, Rape: A Love Story, The Virgin Suicides, and Johnny Porno.  I think you can pick out the key word in each of those titles.  What amazes me is that, after all this time, three of the posts continue to pull in close to 200 new readers per month thanks to Google's search - and Johnny Porno adds another 50 or so.  I suppose that some of the traffic comes from image searchers, but the bulk of it comes because of the four key-words in these titles.

Reviewed in November 2007

Reviewed in May 2010

Reviewed in December 2007
Discussed in February 2012

Tip of the day, my fellow bloggers:

The trick to generating long term traffic from your posts is to choose your post titles (and subjects) very carefully.  The Virgin Suicides review has received the second most hits of any book review I've ever written (second only to Sarah's Key) and Rape: A Love Story ranks tenth all-time.  We've all heard that a huge percentage of internet traffic is driven by pornography searches.  Apparently that's true even for nerdy book review sites like this one.  

Keep searching, guys. 

8 comments:

  1. So combining all of these into one post should do even greater wonders for your blog traffic, right? LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, I figured it was worth a try since traffic starts to drop every summer. You caught me. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm pretty obtuse. Porno and such never occurred to me when I selected the former name of my blog.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sam, this is incredibly fascinating!
    I recall when you first posted that Nympho Librarian cover.... however.... [honestly, honestly now]... I did not land there due to my own google search of the topic.
    Too funny.
    Gee whiz, I'm going to label my next book review, even if it is of Anne of Green Gables -- I'll call it "Upskirt Photos" and see if my blog-traffic increases!
    Thing is, the kind of visitor one gets would not necessarily be the kind one..... wants!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mr. Freud would find that interesting, Susan... :-)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think you get it, Cip. The correct choice of words, used in the right spots, will do wonders in increasing your readership...if those folks can actually read, that is.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I agree, Sandra. And now this very post is attracting a steady, although much smaller, number of long term hits for the blog. Weird.

    ReplyDelete

I always love hearing from you guys...that's what keeps me book-blogging. Thanks for stopping by.