So, I was going about my business last week when the latest story about another toy recall hit. The recall of Aqua Dots struck a nerve with me because that was an item my two artsy girls had recently added to their Christmas Wish Lists. Moments after reading the CNN story, I opened up my dashboard at Raising a Healthy Family (I know, I know, too many to keep up with!) and started writing. I linked to the CNN story and the CPSC site complete with a listing of all the recalls, and hit publish.
I went about my daily tasks and while having lunch I decided to check my stats (yes, I can’t help myself). When I opened the stats for Raising a Healthy Family, I noticed a large number of referrals from none other than CNN.com. Now I was really curious. How on earth was I generating traffic FROM CNN and not the other way around?
It seems that mainstream media is really starting to embrace bloggers. At the bottom of most CNN stories there are now one or two drop down boxes - one is Sound Off and the other one is From the Blogs. From the Blogs highlights three sites that linked to the article and three blogs that are talking about that topic.
It seems that for some period of time, my post at Raising a Healthy Family showed up in that section of the page and generated traffic for me. How cool is that? Now, it wasn’t quite as much traffic as I got from the Stumble effect on the article - 200+ visits from CNN and 3,000 visits from Stumble Upon, but it was traffic and from what I can tell, good quality traffic.
I wasn’t satisfied in just knowing that the traffic came from CNN - I wanted to know why. Upon further research, the company Sphere.com is providing a service that matches up mainstream news items with the conversations in the blogosphere - or as their tag line states - “Connecting Blogs and News”. The fact that this application is being used at a media outlet such as CNN is pretty exciting.
As blogging and other new media outlets continue to grow, I think the line between traditional media and new media is going to blur even more.
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26 Comments»
Matthew
12. November 2007 | 14:25 hI think I’ve heard about this before, congrats.
Stumbled.
digitalnomad
12. November 2007 | 14:56 hSeen and noted…and of course…Stumbled.
Scott
12. November 2007 | 14:57 hThis happened to me back in the spring with The Guardian (UK newspaper). They listed me in a sidebar to a story and I got tonnes of traffic. I think I’m still seeing hits from their site.
Char
12. November 2007 | 15:19 hMatthew - I’m sure this isn’t something new - but the Sphere service is making it easier to link the two from what I can tell.
DigitalNomad - thanks!!
Scott - That is the ultimate way to get the link. Congrats.
Lucy
12. November 2007 | 17:59 hThat is really interesting - thanks for letting us know (and congratulations, of course!). Did you just happen to read the CNN story, or is there some way of setting up an alert/RSS feed from CNN (I can’t spot one at the moment)?
That would be a great way to close the circle …
Amit Agarwal
13. November 2007 | 02:09 hI do get some good traffic from Wall Street Journal website and the reason is Sphere - it rocks.
Pete White
13. November 2007 | 05:21 hNice find, will be interesting to see what they class as relevant content.
MyStarbucks
13. November 2007 | 11:36 hAre you serious? There is a toy recall on aqua dots. My girls just told me they wanted this for Christmas too.
That is awesome you got some great traffic from CNN and it is about time these big media sites start giving us bloggers a bit of credit!
I found you through Stumble Upon, another great way to boost traffic as I’m sure you know.
Good for you!
Boffman
13. November 2007 | 13:55 hGreat Article! This is what brought me to your page, but I found a great site that gives excellent info on blogging. I am currently starting my own blog site on marketing, specifically promotional product marketing. Your site will definately help! Thanks for the great info!
Matt Ellsworth
13. November 2007 | 14:15 hgreat to know though. I had never heard of this with cnn. I had heard of it with the WSJ and the New York Times.
simon
14. November 2007 | 02:53 hsurprised and amazed but sure take note now
Jules
28. November 2007 | 20:07 hI read about this on another blog I read, and thought it was really cool, but I never looked into it. Thanks for doing the research, it’s very interesting!
Mrs. Micah
9. December 2007 | 23:28 hVery cool. My husband has a pretty small blog, but he managed to get a link back from them and ended up with the 2nd highest Google search for the news topic. It was very exciting for him!
Shell Harris
11. December 2007 | 15:06 hI wrote about this same thing except it worked for a client of our with the Wall Street Journal and they did gain traffic, plus a mention on the Wall Street Journal site. This is a very strategic if not, overwhelming, traffic boosting tip.
SEO Blog
12. December 2007 | 10:50 hThanks for the article. I added the sphere widget to my SEO Practices Blog so sphere will grab my posts and send me tons of traffic… he he he, you never know…
Bill in Korea
25. December 2007 | 06:05 hVery interesting find, even more so with the extra info in the comments…Stumbled and thanks for the tips.
MB
5. January 2008 | 00:26 hInteresting tool. Thank you for posting it.
Eric
2. February 2008 | 21:07 hVery interesting post. I initially heard about it from Jack Humphry. I think I am going to try this next time I get a chance. And yes I also stumbled your article.
Vinai
5. March 2008 | 17:30 hGreat info. This shows how important it is to blog and how simple posts can generate traffic to a site. I am going to check out Sphere and start using it today. Thanks for the great info.
The SEO Site
6. March 2008 | 06:05 hYou’re right! There will be a time it seems when much of the news will be delivered by the blog world. Even if it isn’t much of the news is dissected by bloggers and discussed more so than anywhere else.
Once again - valuable information.
Ray
Clara
7. March 2008 | 03:27 hIt’s about time bloggers got some recognition as unbiased news sources. Congrats!
Wolney
8. March 2008 | 18:57 hIt is great news. I had never heard of this with cnn. I hope it is a very recognition from the old media.
Amit
24. March 2008 | 21:52 hThis is just amazing. I found this article through seomoz and just loved reading it ! Thanks for the info.
Giftcardblogger
4. April 2008 | 12:17 hWill definitely try this. Thanks for the information.
Cheap Charley
6. April 2008 | 23:30 hWhat a cool thing to find, in essence you became a news channel on one of the biggest news sources on the planet.
Thanks for sharing with us.
Rosemary
15. May 2008 | 06:41 hGreat information. Thank you for passing it on.
Rosemary
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