I’ve been visiting the UK for a week or so and it’s been a while since I had a rant. I’ll soon put that to rights!

You can’t seem to go anywhere on the web these days without coming across some internet marketer or other telling you about the value of website visitors from the various social bookmarking sites.

Each of these so-called ‘gurus’ would have us believe this traffic is essential to our online survival.

I beg to differ.

Answer me a question: If you’re marketing anything online what would you rather have, 10000 useless vistors or 100 targeted, ready-to-buy visitors? I can pretty much guarantee that social media traffic will fall into the first category.

If you have a blog or website which manages to get popular for a day on any of these sites (like Digg, Slashdot, Furl, etc, etc.) you will get a TON of traffic. But what will this traffic do once it gets to your site?

In a word: f*#k all! (Yes, I know it’s two words.)

Here’s what will really happen:

1. The majority of these visitors will spend all of three seconds on your site before bouncing straight back to their social lifeline.
2. Of those that remain, most will probably read a couple of paragraphs of the page they landed on before getting bored and crying out for mummy.
3. The few that are now left may well read your article or post but very rarely will they delve any further into your site.
4. You won’t have made any money, or gained a subscriber, or achieved whatever else it is your site was hoping for.

Meanwhile your server will have gone into meltdown because of all the extra hits you’ve had, and quite probably will have lost you your one or two real paying visitors into the bargain.

While I would be the first to agree that any traffic is good traffic, I really can’t see the value in traffic for traffic’s sake. I suppose it might help your SE positioning if you achieved this on a regular basis but IMO you would be much better off concentrating on organic SE traffic or PPC campaigns if you’re in the business of internet marketing.

After all if you’re in the business of marketing online then it’s not just any old traffic you want, it’s targeted traffic. Traffic that gives you results, puts a few dollars in your pocket and keeps your kids out of the poor house.

Don’t get me wrong, without traffic of some sort your website or blog might as well be written on the back of a bus ticket. We all need it so we all do whatever we can to get noticed or Dug or Stumbled.

I’m just questioning the Mighty Gurus and their never-ending moving of the goalposts in order to get more money out of all the poor saps who hang on their every word.

The primary purpose of this blog is not to make money, it’s to be read (and hopefully give people a bit of food for thought or entertainment) so I need all the traffic I can get!

Please don’t take offence, I’m not having a go at you, dear reader. Wherever you’ve come from I sincerely hope you’ll keep enjoying my verbal diarrhoea for years to come.

Oh yes, and keep bookmarking me!