Getting Traffic To Your Blog Involves Indexing

We continue to see evidence of frustration about getting a blog indexed, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

I can find the blog using the URL - but my visitor log shows nobody is reading the blog!

and

My blog was #1 for my title, in Google, 3 months ago! Last month, it dropped out of sight!! Why does Google let people hack their results???

People who report these problems do not understand that getting traffic to the blog involves more than simply getting the blog indexed, using the Author, Title, or URL of the blog.

Getting your blog indexed, so you get useful traffic from the search engines, requires effort.

1. You have to get the blog indexed.
2. You have to get the blog indexed, in searches which people actually use, when searching for blogs to read.
3. You have to get the blog indexed, with good position, in searches which people actually use, when searching for blogs to read.
4. You have to repeat #3, constantly - because you are competing with everybody else who wants their blog indexed, with good position.

Note that your blog will be indexed faster, if the search engines can read the content. If you have a custom domain, it's best to set the domain up, properly.

How useful is it, to index the blog by title or URL?

Getting the blog indexed, so you can find the blog by searching for the title or URL, gets the blog indexed by the title or the URL. Use Search Console, and look at the "Search queries" list on the dashboard.

How many Impressions do you see, which reference the blog by the Title or the URL? How many Impressions are from people, other than you, checking to see if the blog is indexed?

How valuable will the blog be, if you publish to a vanity domain - which may (or may not) give you a unique URL?

How useful is it, to have your blog indexed, using terms that people search?

If you want new viewers, you need to get the blog indexed, appearing in a search engine results page (aka "SERP") that people (besides you) are using - and appearing in a good position on that page.

To benefit from any search used by a potential viewer, your blog needs to appear at the top of the search list.

• Any position on SERP Page 1 is better than any position on SERP Page 2.
• SERP Page 1 Position 1 is better than Page 1 Position 2.

Which SERP positions, when clicked, yield the most traffic?

All SERP positions are not going to produce the same amount of traffic, to your blog.

Look at the observations, discussing SERP Page One results, from Click Distribution & Percentages by Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Rank. Which positions, on Page One, get more clicks - and more traffic to your blog?

Position #1: 45.46% of all clicks
Position #2: 15.69% of all clicks
Position #3: 10.09% of all clicks
Position #4: 5.49% of all clicks
Position #5: 5.00% of all clicks
Position #6: 3.94% of all clicks
Position #7: 2.51% of all clicks
Position #8: 2.94% of all clicks
Position #9: 1.97% of all clicks
Position #10: 2.71% of all clicks
Total: 95.91% of all clicks occur on SERP Page One

Your blog, linked from SERP Page One Position One, stands an equal chance of getting a new viewer, than appearing in All Other Positions, combined. And only 1 in 20 viewers will even look beyond SERP Page One.

How different will each SERP page be?

Every different search, from people looking for blogs to read, will produce a different list of blogs.

No matter what the subject - or search terms - there can be only one blog, linked from Page One Position One.

• The more potential readers, searching using a given subject or search term, the more readers you have a chance to get.
• The more potential readers, searching using a given subject or search term, the more other people will publish their own blogs to that subject.
• No matter how much hard work you may do with your blog, you are not guaranteed Page 1 Position 1, in any given SERP.

Would you prefer being a small frog, in a large pond - or a large frog, in a small pond? A pond without other frogs - or even with lots of larger frogs - can be a lonely place.

When you have a new blog,you're better off in a community of blogs. As your blog becomes mature, and you have your own reputation, you're better off on your own. You control your domain - and your own destiny.

Try to find a pond which interests you - not one which other people tell you should interest you. And if you're important in your pond, that's good - just don't expect to be important in other ponds, consistently.

How important is unique content?

Finally, if you want new viewers who will return, and who will send you other new viewers, you'll need informative, interesting, and unique content, that is regularly added - and properly targets your potential readers.

Auto Pagination And Broken Links To Archive And Main Pages

Among the many odd circumstances connected with the controversial Auto Pagination feature that was introduced a month ago, we see reports by a few bloggers of broken inlinks, caused by segmentation of archive and main pages. Most reports specifically mention broken SERP entries, which link to content that's now found in an archive or main page segment that's reached by one or more clicks of "Older Posts". The new and currently un indexed segments have URLs which differ from the SERP entries.

This effect is similar to a problem which I wrote about some time ago, which affect SERPs linking to main page content. Both the archive pages and the main page in a blog are more likely to be indexed by the search engines, because there is more content on these pages, and some content has already been indexed. Some posts, lacking inlinks completely, and depending upon the publishing frequency, may never be indexed except as archive or main page content.

In the case of the SERP entries affected by page segmentation, the potential reader may click on an interesting SERP entry which lands them on a page which contains only the later posts for the period, with the rest, including the content featured in the SERP entry just referenced, behind one or more "Older Posts" clicks. Finding no relevant content on the displayed page segment, the potential reader abandons this SERP entry, and moves on to the next in the retrieval page.

The bloggers with blogs subject to this treatment are naturally concerned about loss of potential readers, and cite this scenario to justify their demands that Auto Pagination be made optional; meaning that they want it turned off for their blog.

Fortunately for them, the broken inlinks are a temporary problem. Blogs that are properly publicised will be re indexed by the search engines, periodically. As the re indexing occurs, the content of the new page segments will be indexed, and will replace the current SERP entries. This effect is similar to the gradual re indexing of blogs re published under a different URL, for instance as part of publishing to a custom domain.

You can - and should - monitor the indexing of your blog, page segmentation or not. Here, the diagnostic reports provided in Google Webmaster Tools will be quite valuable.

The inaccuracy and latency, in indexing blog content, is an inherent problem with search engines in general. It's not a problem unique to Blogger blogs, and certainly not to the Auto Pagination feature in Blogger. It's simply a problem which we all have to live with.

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