If you don’t know where your traffic is coming from you are marketing blind. And if you worry too much about where it’s coming from, you might be marketing but producing less or sub-standard content. It’s an easy mix, if you know how to look. Here are my top 5 referrers from three different sites.

These are the social referrers for this site, Uber.la. When I tweet some people listen. The real magic happens once they hit my site for the first time. 85% of my visitors are first-timers. And I work pretty hard to make sure they at least visit one additional page.

That’s not bad. 1/3 of my traffic, here on uber.la visits a second page.

Okay, let’s look at two other sites.

Here are two sites that are aimed at relationships and parenting.

So what are the quick differences here?

A lot more Twitter traffic. And three large aggregator sites, Huffington Post, The Good Men Project, and News360.com. How’s your Twitter account looking? This audience is 1/3 the size of my uber.la Twitter account, but they generate 2,300 visits. Twitter is really an amazing traffic driver. Today, Twitter maybe serving the purpose that people used to use RSS for. Follow, get updates, and click if a topic is interesting.

I can influence the traffic via Twitter and Facebook, but the three big drivers are sites that have far bigger reach than all of my social channels combined. How can you get your content picked up by one of these massive sites? Write well. Publish often. And ask to be added.

And here’s the last piece of analysis for the relationship sites. Let’s look at one of them.

First off, look at the returning visitor rate! It’s much higher. These people tend to come back when a new post is offered. This is a strong readership. And when they come, even for the first time, they stick around.

These numbers are almost identical for the other relationship site.

One site is full of very emotional and personal information. The content is addictive and highly shareable. The social media site is a bit more obvious. Nothing revolutionary here. I try, but mostly I’m just doing what thousands of other content marketers are doing. I’m making and marketing my own content and selling my expertise in this field of digital marketing.

But by checking on my Top 5 referrers I can see where my time is best spent, if I am trying to build an audience, or promote an especially hot post.

Get your Top 5 Referrers in order and keep the focus on them.

@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth) permalink: https://uber.la/2014/08/top-5-referrers/ ‎

Check out the Strategist’s Notebook page and these other posts about online marketing:

• Workin Facebook < all the Facebook Posts in one place
• uber.la quickies < a streamlined takeaway from today’s best marketing sources
• Social Media University < 2 minute educational videos
• Social Business MBA < the reading list
• Becoming a Social Media Rockstar: The Quick Path < um… let’s discuss

Let me help you jumpstart your social marketing:

FluentSocial (Social Media Marketing)

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