The Carpet And Rug Institute Blog: The Carpet and Rug Institute Blog: 6 Month Analysis

Thursday, November 12, 2009

The Carpet and Rug Institute Blog: 6 Month Analysis

The First Six Months: Carpet and Rug Institute Blog is Subject of Consultant’s Case study

It’s hard for me to believe it’s already been six months since I wrote my first post for the CRI blog. I had never written for a blog before, but some elements were familiar to me – what kind of writing style to use; how to choose the topics, etc. – I had my background as a reporter to help me with that. But other aspects, like how to make a story “relevant” in terms of what keywords to include in the title and first paragraph, and in general how to maximize the SEO – Search Engine Optimization – of the stories I wrote…that part took some getting used to. Luckily, I had the help of Christine Whittemore, whose consultancy, Simple Marketing Now, specializes in helping companies and organizations spread their messages using social media.

Things we set out to accomplish with the Carpet and Rug Institute Blog were first, to provide CRI with a self-publishing platform that would bring carpet-related issues to the attention of a wider audience, specifically, internet users. We also wanted to use links on the CRI blog to create greater exposure for the wealth of information that exists on the CRI website. Finally, we wanted to increase CRI’s visibility on Google rankings, particularly when it came to correcting some of the negative information that exists in abundance on the internet.

Earlier this week, Christine Whittemore published a case study on her Simple Marketing Blog that examines the CRI Blog’s performance during its first six months. The analysis shows that during this time, the blog’s 59 stories have generated a total of 5,637 visits and 8,873 page views, which indicates that a little more than half of the people who visit the blog open up another page from a link inside the blog. Average time spent per visit is 2.13 minutes.

Perhaps most interesting is the fact that 65% of the total traffic to the Carpet and Rug Institute Blog comes from search engines. According to the Simple Marketing Now analysis:

This is significant because it means that a new audience, beyond industry insiders and those already familiar with the Carpet and Rug Institute, is becoming aware of the CRI and its information about carpet. The CRI Blog is successfully increasing the visibility of valuable CRI research-based resources.

Here’s a list of the most popular stories so far: