Do Beauty Bloggers have any impact?

I could just say "Yes" and be done with it but there is more to it.

I tell you what I'll do, I will use June 2011 statistics to explain in part, the impact Blogging has on the online business I run, FashionAddict.com.au. (FA)

58 Beauty Bloggers sent traffic to FA in June 2011. 

In addition to the people arriving direct from the beauty blogs, an additional 558 unique visits came from Twitter. Do not confuse this with Hits or Page Views, which would be approximately 20 times this amount. 1 unique visit can create 20 hits or more in one session as the visitor clicks from page to page of your website.

I mention Twitter because Beauty Bloggers use this medium frequently. Most of the traffic hitting FA from Twitter is from a Beauty Blogger Tweet or Re Tweet. This is easily proven just by scrolling through your Mentions. It looks to me like 16 in every 20 Mentions are from a Beauty Blogger.

I won't include FaceBook because of its dwindling impact on anything of substance. As an aside, how many FaceBook accounts would be sitting dormant in cyberspace these days.. to the nearest million please?

So... Twitter & the Beauty Bloggers. A new musical? No. A match made in heaven? Yes.

Twitter is where I talk to beauty bloggers. I have also been fortunate enough to meet a few bloggers in person. The incredibly dedicated & passionate beauty bloggers I know have one increasingly important affect on my online business, thus the reason for this blog posting -  They send traffic to FA. Good traffic. Buying Traffic.

Does Beauty Blogger Traffic turn into sales?

Yes & No. Beauty Blogger Traffic is definitely responsible for immediate sales. Some blogs send more traffic and more sales than others. It is brand recognition however, that we benefit from most in the long run and ALL beauty blogs make an impact & build the momentum.

A little detective work & with the help of Google Analytics (GA), I have tracked a typical sale path which shows the impact a prominent beauty blogger can have on an online business. A Beauty Blogger post written over 3 months ago was visited by a new FA customer this week. We know which blog the customer came from because we can track it. The customer read a beauty review from this blog, trusted the content, liked what she saw on FA and BOOM! We made a sale. Take the Beauty Blogger out of this equation and we may as well call ourselves Invisible.com. We simply would not have been found so seamlessly.

Why does one Beauty Blogger website send more traffic than another?

It has nothing to do with the amount of followers or negativity in the reviews. True story. It matters little. Follower numbers and negative product review written honestly should not ever concern the product sponsor either. Bloggers don't have to like everything & invariably they don't.  Blogs are personal & honest and I think they should remain that way unless there is a specific agreement in place. Blogging is about the truth, the good, the bad and the beautiful.

However, if you want to know the technical reason why some blogs send more traffic than the other, here is some insight on the matter:
The relevance of the link to the post matched with the relevance of its destination = a Google Marriage.

Sponsors gain the most benefit from links that include the keywords of the product within them as opposed to "Get them here" or "Click here" If the link reads "You can buy this Blue Nail Polish here", the difference literally changes from No Traffic to Targeted Traffic for that particular product type. This blog will now also be listed somewhere under the phrase "Blue Nail Polish" within the next 6-8 weeks. If this Blog was ALL ABOUT Blue Nail Polish, the link would find its way on to Google anywhere from 3 hours from now to 24 hours from now.

Here's the 'Kicker' for the Beauty Blogger. It is not the sponsor being listed on Google so quickly, it is the Blogger. The sponsor benefits because their online business is associated with a high ranking web page about "Blue Nail Polish" (If I can continue with that example), but it is the Beauty Bloggers page that gets the first visit. The Blogger and Sponsor can both have a win. Should they both have a win? I think so. It's not about changing the writing style or distorting the truth.. it's just a little technical layout tweak. Many suppliers don't even know the question they need to ask of the Blogger, thus they fly blind.

When I compile sales data and monitor where the customers are coming from each week, it is very clear where the traffic originates. As a Beauty Blogger supporter & product supplier, FA is mindful of sharing the love when it comes to product hauls but I can see why some suppliers couldn't give a rats. Very harsh, but true.

Visits from Beauty Blogs to FA, in JUNE 2011 in terms of Unique Visit 'numbers' read like this:
306 visits, 232, 91, 74, 59, 37, 25, 21, 19, 13, 13, 12, 11, 10, 10, 10, 9, 8, 7, 7, 6 (x4), 5, (x5), 4, (x4), 3 (x5), 2,(x9) and 1 visit (x6)

For an online business owner trying to maximize immediate returns, it would be tempting to send product to the first 5 or 6 and ignore everyone else. I know some people who do. For the record FA does not do this, but yes, I see their point.

Online Business owners should appreciate any & all contributions to their brand and/or their product made by Beauty Bloggers.

Beauty Bloggers can increase their visibility on Google & the opportunities they offer suppliers simply by adjusting the way they link. Could it really be that simple? 

The blogs that link well have the greatest impact on an online business & the stats back up this story each week.



Thanks for reading


Regards
Director Dave