Google VS Facebook for Sending Traffic
by MistyDon’t expect this to be a well formed and written post. This is going to be more of a log for an experiment I am running.
I have been doing some experimenting with a couple of niche sites and testing traffic and revenue obtained from Google vs Facebook. Keep in mind these were brand new niche sites and brand new domains. I want to see:
1.) How long it takes me to get these ranked in Google and the cost and time for that.
2.) How long it takes me to build up a decent fan base on a Facebook fan page and the cost and time for that.
3.) Which bring in more clicks and revenue.
I will post monthly status updates for at least the next 3 months and after that I will post the full results from this experiment including all costs and time spent. I will not share what the domains are until the very end of my experiment because I don’t want external sources messing with things.
Update as of Feb 25th 2012
So far Facebook wins. One of the sites (very niche) which is now 3 months old is making on average $700 per month from Facebook, has a fan base of almost 24,000 and receives over 20,000 visits per month from Facebook. All from spending about 5 minutes per day posting status updates on the Facebook page. I am spending about $175 per month to obtain new targeted fans to the Facebook page. If you are a numbers geek running numbers through your head right now, you will know that so far Facebook is earning me about $210 per hour on time I am spending.
5 mins per day * 30 days = 150 mins per month/60 = 2.5 hours per month spent updating the Facebook page. $700 revenue per month – $175 ad costs = $525 net /2.5 hours = $210 per hour.
From Google organic traffic, it makes about $100 per month and gets about 7000 visits. Backlink building time and costs so far have been more than cost and time in building up Facebook page fans. So far I am spending about 5 hours of my time per month building external content and backlinks and am spending about $150 per month outsourcing a very small chunk of backlink building. Going off the same logic as above, so far I am losing money from time spent obtaining Google organic traffic.
I do know however that if I can get the site to rank better organically in Google that the traffic will bypass what is being received from Facebook. It sure is harder now days though to get and keep organic rankings in Google.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next couple of months. If I can obtain better organic rankings, Google will by far bypass Facebook. But at what cost and time involved?
So far from these tests it is making me re-think some of our marketing strategies and where to put our time and dollars especially when launching a new site or product.
Debbie James Said,
February 25, 2012 @ 2:21 pm
This is very interesting information. My husband has a couple of niche sites he’s about to promote so this is so helpful. Do you have 2 different urls promoting the same product?
Jennifer Said,
February 25, 2012 @ 3:00 pm
I have a page on Facebook as well as a website. I have never concentrated a lot of time or focus on my Facebook page, because I believe the general public isn’t aware there’s a directory, and pages are often in wrong categories there anyway. Since the most recent Google update, I have personally been focusing more of my efforts on Google Plus because it’s been rumored that Google is going to take cues from their own Social Network. At this point, I’m not really sure anyone knows what is going to get you ranked on Google.
Misty Said,
February 25, 2012 @ 6:36 pm
Debbie – we have 1 Facebook fan page for each niche site. We acquire fans to it by running very targeted Facebook ads that lead to the fan page. We setup a welcome tab with a fan gate using the FaceItPages app at http://www.faceitpages.com. We get an 80% click to like conversion. We are only paying 3 cents per click with Facebook ads. Because we have built up our fan count, when we post content (links to blog posts) to the wall, we get on average 500 to over 1000 visits to the post from our fans who are following our page. It is easy, very targeted traffic now that we built up our fan count.
What type of niche sites does your husband run? If you don’t want to publicly post them, feel free to contact me through our contact page. I would be happy to give your husband some suggestions on how he can drive traffic through a Facebook page.
Misty Said,
February 25, 2012 @ 6:44 pm
Jennifer – the best way to make people aware of your Facebook page imo is through targeted Facebook ads. Once you build up your fan count, each time you post to the page, your fans have a chance of seeing your content.
I agree that it is becoming more complicated on knowing how to get ranked in Google. That is one of the primary reasons why I have been looking for other affordable alternative means of driving targeted traffic that converts.
I am still not sure about Google+. I have a profile there and a few pages there too. I keep them updated but so far not much activity and traffic. It is something I am keeping my eye on closely though especially since Google is now pushing Google+ content all over the search results.
Scott Said,
February 26, 2012 @ 11:54 am
Interesting test. I’m curious about a couple aspects of your test.
How are you making money? affiliate revenue? ad revenue?
What type of content do you publish on your status updates?
thanks for any info!
Misty Said,
February 26, 2012 @ 12:31 pm
Hi Scott – one of the sites we are testing this on which is the one I am discussing so far here is a content based site. It is making money off ads and affiliate rev. I am testing this on 4 sites total touching on different niches. The other 3 sites are even newer so I don’t have enough data to discuss on them yet. I vary the status updates. Sometimes I just ask simple questions and other times I post links to a blog post that was written. Or I ask a question that is relevant to the blog post and link to that post. Those types of updates get a lot of engagement on FB and the most clicks. It is very niche so the fans on the page are very engaged.
I have also use FB ads extensively on a business fan page that sells could based software for a subscription. That page on average is converting 10% of “likes” (fans) into sign ups. I am not using the cloud based software in this test because the service has been around for almost 2 years now and gained a ton of backlinks from coverage, so wouldn’t be good in this test being that I am trying to figure out what method is more effective for brand new sites in terms of generating business and ROI the quickest.
We also heavily use PPC to bring in customers for some of our services. PPC Vs Facebook ads is an entirely different beast which I may write about later.