The Question Determined
Not too long ago, I was reading an article on SEOmoz.com about Website Analytics vs. Competitive Intelligence. The ideas in this article presented an interesting take on whether or not the external metrics of publicly available traffic data, like Technorati, Alexa, Bloglines, Google Page Rank, etc. correlate to actual traffic statistics (internal metrics). The author’s conclusion was that there was no correlation between external metrics and internal metrics. In other words, the author found that the rankings of these external metrics did not indicate the true level of traffic for any particular site. Too bad. Competitive intelligence would have been made oh so much more easily pursued had that relationship been proven. Maybe even a little too easy.
But that article posed a question in my mind. Here’s my background thinking for that question.
I know that a great many web surfers, blog readers in particular, while viewing a site will check the Alexa ranking for that particular site. Alexa is one of the most popular of all the publicly available external metrics for websites.
It’s always fun to “check the Alexa.” Count me among those that do. I’ve got the Alexa toolbar in the lower right corner of my browser, so Alexa checks are pretty much instantaneous. After reading the aforementioned article, a question popped into my mind which was “Does the Alexa ranking influence the amount of comments that a blog will receive?” Here’s why that’s a valid question.
Based on the theories of crowd behavior and social proof, I theorized that if a blog reader believes a blog to be well-trafficked, regardless of the findings of the previously mentioned article, then the reader might feel that the blog has some importance and therefore, to be seen as part of that importance, the reader will leave a comment. And since Alexa is one of the most common publicly available external metrics, I decided to limit my question to just Alexa.
For competitive intelligence on blogs, I thought the answer to this question might be useful theory for the determination of the success of a competitor’s blog. But before I go on to talk about whether or not using Alexa as a gross indicator of comment level is valid, let me first chat about the idea of “success.”
Success Defined
Success can mean many things to many people. But no matter what defines success it cannot be reached unless a goal is established. If there is no goal, there is nothing by which to measure the success.
In recent years, blogging has become one of the more popular social media tools used in business marketing. In my research I have seen many businesses jump into blog marketing without giving much thought to what they wanted to achieve with the blog.
Generally, businesses seem to have a vague idea that since blogs are part of the social media arsenal, blogs can help them to get “social” with their customers and prospects, or even your customers and prospects. “Social” is taken to mean establishing some sort of “personal” relationship between the blogging company and the customers in the marketplace. This is good because one of the primary rules of keeping customers is to have an established relationship with them. Blogs fit perfectly in this plan because:
The primary goal of a blog is:
- Establishing a dialogue between writer and readers.
Since a blog is a two-way, interactive communications medium, businesses, i.e, your competitors, can use blogs to get a conversation going between themselves and those that they serve, i.e., your customers.
So a successful blog can be defined as the creation of dialogue, which is dependent upon the level of comments.
Perhaps you, as a competitive intelligence manager, may be thinking, “Wait a minute. I thought the primary goal of a business blog was to bring in new business?” The answer is no. Bringing in new business is a strategic goal, reached by attaining many different tactical goals. A blog is a tactic within the overall business strategy. Reaching the tactical goal will help reach the strategic goal.
A competitor’s blog simply assists in the all-important marketing process of establishing a link between the competitor and the customer. Without such a link a competitor, any competitor, is doomed to failure. But for those that can establish this link, their customer-centrism will pay off.
In talking to business bloggers, and reading their comments on other blogs, I find that many think that if a blog has a good Alexa, Google Page Rank, Technorati score, or ranks high on any other publicly available external metric, then that blog must have good dialogue going with its readers, meaning that they think the blog is garnering a lot of comments and is a “success.”
The Question Restated
So back to the central question posed earlier, “Does the Alexa ranking influence the amount of comments that a blog will receive?” Or read that as “Does the Alexa contribute to blog success?” I’ll continue the discussion on this topic in my next post.
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