There is No Such Thing As A Bad Visitor
There is No Such Thing As A Bad Visitor
Spending time sifting through your comments can be laborious to say the least. Especially if you are one to go through and remove the ones that don’t add any value to your site. You know the comments like “Hey Good Post, Webmaster” or “Thanks for the great article.”.
You probably hate them and wish that the people that come to your site and leave comments like this would just stay away and not leave the garbage behind that you have to spend precious time cleaning up.
Well I say bite your tongue.
Recently while writing a guest post for a project that Freddie Taylor is working on I had Danny Cooper help me out by reading through what I had already written. In my article I addressed that there are two different types of readers and that my method of guest posting would attract them both to your site. The types of readers are deep readers and skimmers.
Deep Readers Are…
Deep readers are those people that you love and strive to get to your site. They come and read your full article, they respond in a logical fashion by either agreeing with or debating your point, and they add great overall value to your site.
Skimmers Are…
Those readers that you hate. They come and read tiny snippets of your post in order to keep themselves from looking like utter ass hats when they leave a semi appropriate comment that your site could have probably lived without.
This is the point in my article which Danny stopped and asked why you would want to attract these “skimmers”.
Because There is No Such Thing as a Bad Visitor.
When it comes to making money online you are going to do it by selling products, whether they are yours or somebody elses, and the only way to do that is by getting visitors.
This means that the skimmer is just as valuable as the deep reader when you are in the advertising business you need eyes on your site for two reasons.
The more your ads that are displayed on your site the more money you will make and the more visitors you have to your site the more money you can charge to advertise on it.
The More the Merrier.
The more visitors the better is a simple concept because you make money from Pay Per Click, Pay Per Impression, or Pay Per Action advertisements that are placed on your site. You know the simple truth that the more ads that are displayed the more likely you are to get those clicks and conversions. Yes placement and product have a lot to do with successful Click Through Ratios but I can guarantee that you will make more money if you have 10,000 visits rather than 10.
The less obvious reason is when you are in the business of selling private advertisements on your site. More visits means more money. In order to get your ad spots to sell on your site you better have some serious mojo behind them. Advertisers are looking for the best bang for their buck which means they are looking for sites that have high traffic volumes as well as a lot of participation. Once again if you have 10,000 visits rather than 10 advertisers are going to be much more likely to spend their precious money on your site. This also means that your site will be in higher demand and therefore you can charge more per ad spot.
So next time you are cursing all those that leave your site after not giving much of an effort to participate in your discussion remember that they are still benefiting you in other ways.
Let Me Know
Have you been successful in monetizing your site through selling private advertisements? If so what has the criteria been for advertisers buying ads on your site? Do you show off your stats publicly or have they asked you to see them privately, or did you find that they don’t care at all?
Stuff Around Creadiv
Stuff around Creadiv is a new portion of my posts that I am thinking of adding to the end of my posts when I have a few topics I would like to introduce but don’t have enough to write about for a full article. Keep an eye out for this segment mainly to be filled with what is going on in my projects, new money I brought in, or links to cool articles I have found around the net.
Adam
38 Comments
Dan on November 10th, 2008
I haven’t really done much to monetize sites - namely as I have been just in the business of building them and selling - but I agree, the more visitors you send and the more adverts you have, essentially the more money you will make.
As for bad visitors, again they aren’t really any bad visitors. The fact your site is visited is good, and then the visitor could purchase something, leave a comment, etc. all depending on the quality of your site (and the mentality of the visitor). If only ‘good’ visitors came, a lot of blogs would (sadly) not be running anymore!
Dans last blog post..Make Money From Blogs With No Readers
Adam on November 10th, 2008
Ben,
Exactly. You don’t have to prove that your have traffic when your users do it for you by commenting. If I were an advertiser I would be much more interested in a site that had an active community but fewer page views that a site that had high page views but fewer comments.
Adam
Adams last blog post..Bad Mood Blogging
Adam on November 10th, 2008
Dan,
All I have to say is your comment luv title is great because I want to make money from blogs with no readers.
Adam
Adams last blog post..Bad Mood Blogging
Freddie on November 10th, 2008
I have a few personal advertisers in a different niche that are paying $100/mo and $35/mo to be on the site. The site doesn’t get a massive amount of traffic, but it is in a high paying niche where you don’t need many sales to be successful. But the readers on that site, crave information.
I love your concept of deep readers and skimmers. You are right that a visitor is a visitor, but I think given the choice you would prefer the deep readers. Why?
Because deep readers are going to stay on your site longer because obviously they are interested enough in the material or you enough to read the material deeply as oppose to skimming.
I think this translates into better advertising sales because in addition to the # of eyeballs on your site, your Avg Time on site per visitor will increase as well. This alone may not triple your advertising sales price, but it can be another factor on your side that justifies the cost of private advertising.
Freddies last blog post..Goal Setting Sunday: Week 10
ZK@Internet Marketing Blog on November 10th, 2008
Every visitor on my bog counts , I apreciate even comments like ” Great post” :)…to me its a rewarding experience of course it good to have interactive and meaningful comments, but that may not happen for all the post
ZK@Internet Marketing Blogs last blog post..Blogging Secrets from John Chow
Adam on November 10th, 2008
Freddie,
Thanks for the props on deep and skimmers.
Of course deep readers are going to be better traffic for adding quality to your site, but I don’t think they are great buyers. In the make money online / blogging niche I think the people that do the buying are the noobs and skimmers looking for quick easy ways to make money.
Generally it is those readers that we, for lack of a better term, exploit because we want them to buy are make money products. Advertisers know this as well. As much as we would like to believe that our best readers are our buyers I would have to think it is actually the opposite.
Adam
Elijah on November 10th, 2008
Deep Readers and Skimmers.. I really like the wording with that.
Totally true as well. Unfortunately, the majority of traffic passing through our blogs on a daily basis are Skimmers or Lurkers as some call them.
On the plus side, there is no such thing as a bad visitor - just like you said. So Skimmers are more than welcome!
Blogging School on November 10th, 2008
Yeah, I agree. Bad visitors do not exist. Unless they bitch.
Lindsay on November 10th, 2008
I am happy for all visitors. I have heard people saying they don’t want traffic from stubbleupon and the like because they just read and leave. The cost of bandwidth is so small worrying about that seems silly. And I believe some visitors will decide to subscribe and return so even if that percentage is low I am happy for all the traffic.
Lindsays last blog post..Brett Favre Overcomes Painkiller Addiction
Dennis Edell on November 10th, 2008
I read so many blogs that i almost always start a new one as a skimmer. I’ll skim more then one article though and if I like what I see I subscribe…all in the same sitting usually.
I haven’t started selling private ads yet…thinking of it now that my readership is slowly but steadily on the rise. 
Dennis Edells last blog post..Did You Know You Can Refund Domain Names?
Bruno Auger on November 10th, 2008
I see all kinds of different visitors. Of course your going to get skimer and other such people who are just looking for a free ride.
I do delete some comments of people saying nice post and such stuff because they don’t provide anything relavent or of substance to my blog.
Bruno Augers last blog post..Ten Tips to Help You Build Links
Ms Sparky on November 10th, 2008
I try to read the entire post. Honestly, some of it is just not for me. But I feel they at least deserve a comment for the effort. Right now I have an argument going on between two readers on one of my posts and they are using my comments like a forum. They haven’t gotten abusive or nasty so I thought, why not. I’m sure people are coming back to read their comments as well.
Some of my post are very controversial and I have been flamed pretty badly and I haven’t deleted those. so, unless it’s spam I don’t delete it.
Ms Sparkys last blog post..Thank A Veteran
Dan on November 11th, 2008
Haha, cheers - since doing the guest post for you I learnt a bit and have been trying to make better posts and post headings. I thought that one was particulary good (albeit its a long post!! haha)!
Dans last blog post..Make Money From Blogs With No Readers
Undedogblogger on November 11th, 2008
I’m going to buck the trend and disagree with you Adam. While “more is better” applies sometimes, it isn’t really the panacea of website traffic. What you want is correctly targeted traffic that will convert. If you sell ad spots and you get millions of readers and not one of them clicks an ad, your ad spots are worthless and advertisers will realise this eventually. If you only get 10 readers and every one clicks an ad, your ad spots will be valuable and it will show your advertisers that you have targeted your site extremely well.
The only time I think you want every available reader is when you get cost per impression advertising. Then you just want wads and wads of traffic - good or bad quality.
Undedogbloggers last blog post..Write right
Adam on November 11th, 2008
Elijah,
I am glad people like the terminology.
When I think of lurkers I generally think of people that are actually more like to read a lot but not comment. They kind of lurk around and stay on the site for a while but rarely ad to a discussion.
Adam
Adams last blog post..There is No Such Thing As A Bad Visitor
Adam on November 11th, 2008
Ha,
I hate whiners and bitchers but they are more than welcome too.
Adam
Adams last blog post..There is No Such Thing As A Bad Visitor
Adam on November 11th, 2008
Lindsay,
Welcome to the site and thanks for the comment I hope you stick around for a while and become a full fledged creadiv.
Adams last blog post..There is No Such Thing As A Bad Visitor
Adam on November 11th, 2008
Dennis,
You will eventually get to a point where selling private ads will be beneficial. For me the first ad sales I made I sold for 1 year. I probably took a hit in the long term on the value of the ad spot, but it was my first step toward private advertising.
Adam
Adams last blog post..There is No Such Thing As A Bad Visitor
Adam on November 11th, 2008
Bruno,
I am deleting comments constantly. I don’t mind the visitors coming and leaving and driving up my stats, but I do mind having low quality comments left on my site.
Adam
Adams last blog post..There is No Such Thing As A Bad Visitor
Adam on November 11th, 2008
I love when commentators debate on my site. I try to do it as often as possible.
When moderate such debates though I don’t change much. If they use a swear word or something inappropriate I might XXXX it out but I will leave the bulk of the comment intact.
Adams last blog post..There is No Such Thing As A Bad Visitor
Adam on November 11th, 2008
I though the same thing at first, but then started thinking about the buyers in this niche.
When it comes to the blogging / MMO niche most of the buyers are noob looking for a quick way to make a buck. I don’t think that point can really be debated. As most of the products you seen sold on such blogs are make money quick ads and ebook / courses on how to earn an online income.
So now I know my target audience right? Well let’s think about how they act. Most noobs come to blogs skim them leave a comment to get a back link and hope to hell that somebody clicks through to it.
I think the noobs are the skimmers, which makes them my target audience for ads and it works perfectly for me.
Adam
Adams last blog post..There is No Such Thing As A Bad Visitor
Undedogblogger on November 11th, 2008
erm - perhaps I explained my point badly….I do not assume skimmers are bad traffic. I’m saying to make money you need to convert your traffic - deep readers or skimmers makes no difference. Saying all traffic is good is not true - in the mmo niche, as you have pointed out, skimmers are your target market……deep readers are “bad” traffic since they will increase your page views without increasing your click-throughs. Lower conversions percentages are penalised in some ppc advertising campaigns (like the much-debated google smart-pricing anomaly). Anyhoo, just my thoughts on the matter.
Undedogbloggers last blog post..Who do you have to insult to get a little traffic around here?
Adam on November 11th, 2008
Even if I am targeting skimmers as my “buyers” in my niche I don’t think deep readers are “bad” traffic because their activity will most generate new content and links which will bring more skimmers.
I don’t know if companies penalize your for lower conversion ratios or not, but even so if you are getting more ad views from more visitors then you may not increase your conversion ratio but you will increase your number of ads diplayed which is in most cases a benefit.
I mean you can have a 10% conversion ratio on 10 views or a 1% conversion ratio on 100 views and it equals the same amount of money but you are much more like to convert at 1% than 10%. So the more ad views you have the lower conversion you need to make the same amount of money. Which means the more visitors the better.
Adams last blog post..There is No Such Thing As A Bad Visitor
Dennis Edell on November 11th, 2008
I’m pretty much there; I’ve actually been lazing around on the advertising page for some reason.
I too thought about the year long thing a while back, but thought better of it on both parties accounts…I didn’t have the proper traffic for them and I figured I’d be shooting myself in the foot within a couple months.
Dennis Edells last blog post..Did You Know You Can Refund Domain Names?
M. Pence on November 12th, 2008
Very true, Adam.
There are several web blogs and sites that I frequent and some times I don’t comment. Some times I skim to find what I am looking for or if I am in a hurry.
I always try and come back to make a comment if I can, but often it either isn’t really necessary or maybe someone else has already said what I could have. 
M. Pences last blog post..Today is the Day!
Blog Comment Blueprint on November 12th, 2008
How about a visitor which clicks all your adsense ads multiple times to get you banned?
Or a visitor which notices your out of date wordpress and exploits it leaving your blog in ruins?
Stephan Miller on November 12th, 2008
There is no bad visitors and I admit to being a skimmer at times. Usually it starts by falling back on a old belief that I can get more done by doing things faster, which is only true to a point.
As far as skimmer’s go on my blog, I like them also. I used to piss me off when visitors would ask the same question over and over in comments that I had covered in the post. But even that helps. More content and each visitor phrases the question in another way. It works for Google. My long tail phrases come from skimmers.
As long as you see the glass as perpetually half full, you will find the good in all of your comments, even the “Nice post!” ones. Because I admit I have left those too when there is nothing I can really add to a post but want to show my appreciation. In fact, if anything spammers ruined, it was the simple ability to get through with that phrase when you truly mean it.
Stephan Millers last blog post..Internet Marketing Top Blogs at Winning the Web
Adam on November 12th, 2008
But writing your opinion isn’t just expressing yourself it is also link building and relationship building. Two things you need for your blog to succeed. Don’t worry about repeating just be unique when you do.
Adam
Adam on November 12th, 2008
Danny,
I guess I need to revise my statement. Visitors with malicious intent are bad, but those that are merely trying to be self serving by skimming and commenting are not.
Adam on November 12th, 2008
I completely agree. I love to tell people how good their post is even if I don’t have a strong enough opinion to make a long and detailed comment. But you are right I can’t do that without making it long winded because most people will just delete them now.
Adam
Web Marketing on November 13th, 2008
You get constructive criticizm from “bad” visitors. So I totally agree with you on that point, there aren’t any bad visitors.
Where Did Soccer Originate on November 16th, 2008
Well apart from those horrible spammers who give you a huge comment containing about 30 links to “inappropriate sites”, I agree with you. If they do nothing, they are hurting, and if they criticise, take it into consideration
Anthony @ Low Interest CC on November 17th, 2008
This post teases out a curious subject that I always pondered. Why do blogmasters get so bent out of shape when someone leaves a sub-par comment? Excluding blatant, link-filled spam, who really gives a damn what kind of comment it is? Yes you want interactive, intelligent visitors, but isn’t fresh content all the same in the eyes of the search engine? And isn’t the search engine a major source of those interactive, intelligent visitors?
Rendy Wong on November 19th, 2008
Great post lol..
Great comment mean great apreciate to the author because its important to giving feedback about what the post. Blogger means network, mean meet new people and new friend. I dont’ want to lose my new friends by giving them bad input. I totally agree with you Adam!
Rendy Wongs last blog post..Contest for Charity, Fun and friends
Normal Joe on November 19th, 2008
Great post Adam….as long as they aren’t leaving spammy comments, all visitors are good with me! Lol….the more visitors the better, as you say!
I think a majority of people skim until they enough value from skimming that they become a deep reader! So we welcome the skimmers because they can be our future deep readers…at least that’s how I look at it.
Normal Joes last blog post..Transform Your Thinking-If You Had THIS You’d Be Successful
Abhishek on November 21st, 2008
I loved your concept of skimmers, sometimes they are useful too.
Abhisheks last blog post..Download Torrent without Torrent Client in your System
Michael Henry on November 30th, 2008
Skimmers…
I get your concept and its one that has been repeated on a few other blogs, but have you ever considered that some posts merely warrant a “nice post” type of response? Or, perhaps, the commenter really hates what you’ve written but for some reason can’t tell you how much you suck?
Ben Tremblay on November 10th, 2008
So true, there are NO bad visitors. Even the skimmers who barely read the posts but still drop an average comment are important and here’s why. For all the reasons you’ve mentioned of course, but also because they might come back the day after and stay a little longer, then come back again and finally read a complete post and eventually coming back everyday, showing you some link love, etc.
I don’t know if I’m “successful selling private advertising”, but I sold the 6 spots on my blog in about a week. I didn’t make any effort to be honest, I just bought OIO publisher and then put up and advertise page. I don’t put my stats, I think the number of comments I get is a good indicator that people come back to my site and that I receive some traffic at least
You can go different way with advertising, just do it your own way 
Ben Tremblays last blog post..Offline marketing: I see huge potential