Low Blogrush Click Through Rates
John Reese has recently said that the main reason for super low click through rates with Blogrush is due to the fact people are writing titles too broadly. I don’t believe this is the reason, for one Problogger had 35 clicks with a staggering 75,000 impressions. Which is terrible, not even 1% and I think he’s pretty experienced on writing captivating titles.
I think the main reason is the placement of the widget on blogs. Every blog I have seen the widget on has the widget down really far out of sight. Now obviously if nobody can see it, nobody is going to click it. People are obviously far more likely to click if it’s right up in eye-line. But I think bloggers are aware of this and are doing it purposely to avoid people losing focus on their own posts and I can understand that. And because the widget is still on the page, they still get the impressions, so no harm done. But what’s the point of getting the impressions with no traffic back?
But… with everybody doing this, nobody will ever get good traffic from it, so it’s pointless. John Reese said there is high click through rates with things like philosophy, now that’s obviously partly due to the fact philosophy is very passionate and… well, philosophical. So it’s sort of more… in-depth intellectually therefore higher CTR is understandable. But I think also maybe people with philosophy blogs aren’t Internet marketers which is why they don’t care about ads and placement and all sorts of other issues they wouldn’t think of.
I think big blogs with big traffic can have the widget up in clear view without any harm because they have thousands of readers anyway. But I think small bloggers are a bit scared they might lose readers and what not by doing so and I was abit to. But the good thing is, Blogrush opens the links in a NEW window, so if people click you wont have a one click and gone effect anyway.
So any bloggers reading this with the widget way down hidden in a sidebar… put it in view! if you don’t other people wont and we’ll all continue to be a bit selfish with it and continue gaining credits without having traffic as our reward! they don’t leave your site and it gains you traffic, so use it properly to start this network of traffic circulating!
To be honest when I see the widget on a blog, I don’t give it second thought. I can’t even remember reading one of the blog titles. I honestly don’t see the benefit of Blog Rush at all.
Well… the benefit should be that bloggers should send each other traffic. The more impressions you get, the more traffic you get should be the principle. But because of hidden placement on most Internet marketing blogs, the category is seeing terrible click through rates.
According to the Blogrush dashboard I haven’t gotten any clicks through the widget but my own statistics tell me different. I’m finding widget.blogrush.com come up frequently enough in the list of referrers on my statcounter statistics.
I’m only starting off and I have low traffic so it’s possible for me to see each individual referrer. Two or three referrals a day may not be noticeable on bigger sites but I am seeing them and at least it’s higher than the big zero that Blogrush tell me clicked through!