Facebook v Google and Twitter – Battle for Web Traffic and Revenue Hots Up
Posted: Friday, March 04, 2011
by Julian Price
http://www.uk-freelance-content-writer.co.uk/
Facebook, Google and Twitter are locked in a head to head battle for web traffic and advertising revenue. What does this mean for those that use the internet to drive traffic to their own web content?
Google News, Twitter and Facebook appear to be the most effective way of breaking and rapidly circulating news events on the internet, outside of the big hitting, hard to beat major news outlets and websites.
Being first is the tricky part! How did you hear about the news piece you hope to write about, BBC news or CNN perhaps? Saw it Tweeted on Twitter or Liked on Facebook? The chances are you have already missed the boat for the really big traffic. Admittedly, if you write a decent piece of content and get your title just right, then you may still notice some increased traffic while the topic is trending, but to be a part of something that really goes viral from the beginning is really tough, simply because there is so much competition.
If you could see into the future, you really would be onto a winner and all of the world’s web traffic could be yours! Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that.
Getting a story onto Google news, could result in a few days worth (at the most) of really good traffic but getting your article to appear there is really not easy for the average Joe. Most Google news stories appear to come from already established, news websites or press release sites. I was once fortunate to get an article on to Google news, although the article was posted (without any self promotion) on a site called American Chronicle. The subject was fairly niche too, so although the traffic to that article was great for a day, the stats were not particularly world beating.
The guys at Google now say that Twitter tweets are now being considered and possibly used for ranking purposes, (much the same way links are) which is pretty massive news for all the tweeters out there. However, as always with Google, they love the word “authority” and one must confess, it makes sense. For a tweet to really hold some weight, it appears Google will not only look at the content of the tweet but also the authority of the person who is tweeting in relation to the topic.
For example, Tiger Woods tweeting about a new golf club constitutes authority. Britney Spears tweeting about her new song, album or video constitutes authority. However, Joe Blogs tweeting about something he really doesn’t know anything about, it’s not really going to cut the mustard.
Facebook, theoretically, might be your best chance of being a part of something viral. If you have a really good, very interesting piece of content and you already have quite a few Facebook friends, and they all pass it on to their friends, etc, etc, then you might, just might have something big on your hands.
Internet traffic is much sought after, and unless you already have a voice, it can be really difficult to make yourself heard. Everything, really, is all about the Social Network right now, and the more connected you are the better chance of internet success you have, provided you have something interesting to say, or something cool to sell or give away!
Happy Traffic Hunting!
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Good stuff Julian, if I would have known this before maybe I wouldn't still be so insignificant.:-) I've heard Twitter is resisting Google's mating calls, might change the way in which we trend in the end.Thanks for reading David! Yes, it will be interesting to see just how tweets may or may not influence ranking results.
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