When analyzing this traffic with Google Analytics, it is important to see how it converts.  How many of these visitors are actually clicking on ads?  Do not get me wrong, I enjoy writing for this website, but ultimately, making money is one of the main goals for this adventure.  The social media site that provides the best conversion by far is Propeller.  If you get to the top 5 in the News section of Propeller, you are put on the front page of news.aol.com under user submitted stories.  Being on AOL News provides amazing conversation rates.  Unfortunately, Propeller has been diluted with stories by the power users.  Most of the news articles that get to the top 5 of user submitted stories are now from major websites like news.aol.com which is redundant to me.  If I wanted to read a major news story, I would just go to CNN, not Digg or Propeller.

Reddit and Stumbleupon have provided good traffic, but very little converts to ad clicks.  I once got to the front page of Reddit for about 30 minutes which provided 8000 pageviews to this site.  I am quite convident that out of the 8000 pageviews, about 3 converted into ad clicks.  Stumbleupon has provided consistent visits, but also convert at a very low rate.  The one thing that Stumbleupon does provide is users who actually read some of the website.  The average visit of Stumbleupon users is 42 seconds while Reddit users average visit is 17 seconds.  On the day that I got to the front page of Reddit, the average time spent on the site from Reddit users was 4 whole seconds.  Is that enought time to read the title and the first sentence?

So this begs the question “Is Social Media Traffic Really Worth It?”  The Google Algorithm thinks so.  Even if the traffic provides nothing but a 4 second visit, it is still valuable.  Part of Google’s Pagerank Algorithm is rank on Alexa and Compete. The only way to increase your ranking on Alexa and Compete is to increase the number of visitors to your site.  While this is just part of the algorithm, it is still something that may get you from a Pagerank of 3 to a Pagerank of 5.

One warning for those new to social media.  Do Not Spam!  Unfortunately, I was very new to Web 2.0 when I started my blog adventures and I did not realize what Spamming was.  I was kicked off Digg in the first week for submitted only my web content.  Reddit does not mind when you submit your own content, but the users catch on very quickly and push your stuff down in rankings after they catch on.  If you are going to submit something, make sure it is great content or another user does it.  Social Media users know when you are promoting your own site over and over and I found out the hard way.

Ultimately, the best conversion visitors are those from Google.  They are actually researching the content on your site and they are much more likely to click some of the advertisements.  The question is, do I go through social media to get higher on Google.  That is a question you need to ask yourself.  If you have a pagerank of 5 or higher, you “should” be able to rank on the front page for some highly searched keywords.  All of this is based on your competition of course.  There is no way you will ever be ranked #1 for mortgage rates, but it is possible that you can be ranked #1 for March Mortgage Rate Predictions.

It is well known that users are now using MUCH longer searches in Google.  Over 20% of Google searches are over five words long.  With this knowledge, it is wise to create great content and realize that you will get hits from searches from keywords that you didn’t even intend on being important.

At times, I found myself writing articles that catered to the Social Media User.  Articles like “6 Reasons the Mortgage Industry Continues to Lag in Technology.”  While articles like this are a hit on social media sites, is it really valuable to the users I want to convert to ad clicks?  Not really.  Social media users are going to see the pictures, laugh, and move on to the next website.  My preference is the visitor like yourself who is willing to read entire articles and gain valuable content from this resource.

With that being the case, this website is going to get a lot more personal.  I will no longer attempt to please the social media users.  I am going to please the readers who actually stay on this website longer than FOUR seconds.  With that in mind, this site may very well upset some users with my political and business rants.  You may not agree with what I say, but I will do my research and attempt to present an unbiased article with an outside perspective, much like “Will the Last Honet Bank Please Stand Up?“  I am not affiliated with either politcal party but I am extremely Capitalist so that will give you an indication of where this website is headed.

For those of you who visit this website often, please comment and carry on conversation through the articles.  I will attempt to do a better job of responding to comments as I am no longer going to spend my available time catering to the social media websites.  Do not get me wrong, I will not be upset if you guys help me to the front page of Reddit, Digg or StumbleUpon, but that is not my intention anymore.  My intention is to be “Your Mortgage News Source” and provide quality content and answers to your questions.  Please make sure to visit other areas of the site as well.  Here are some recent stories that you may enjoy:

• First-Time Buyer Questions
• Obama’s Making Home Affordable Program WILL Help You Refinanc
• “Not Everybody Can Own a Home”