Catchy title, huh? You might have even come to our website for the first time because of it. If that's the case, welcome. I'm glad you'll be joining us.

If you are new, I'm afraid I've already done you a bit of a disservice. This may come as a surprise to you, but I'm not planning on talking about Batman, Apple, or even cat videos. I've only written a title like that to generate traffic. You see, I've found that putting in exciting topics in the title of an article bring in more traffic. More traffic is good, so I'm doing my job as an online marketer, right?

As you can probably tell by now, I'm being a tad facetious. Generating traffic is the online analog of generating foot traffic for a brick and mortar store. I can put big flashing lights or huge TV's in a store and pull a lot of people inside. But it's the people who actually buy things that matter. Put another way, just pulling in people in from off the street may keep you busy, but if they aren't interested in what you're selling, you're just wasting time.

If I tell you about two blogs, and tell you that blog A gets 500 visits a day and that blog B gets 10 visits a day, you might assume that blog A is more effective. In reality, it's simply more popular. Let me explain the distinction. If blog A only posts youtube videos and blog B talks about a specific widget for a certain model of a private jet, you'll find that 10 people looking specifically for what your company offers is more valuable than 500 cat video lovers.

Don't let low traffic numbers discourage you from blogging. Writing about specific topics that no one else does can be a great strategy for generating highly-qualified traffic over time. That's what we call "long-tail keywords". Those are topics that are very specific to certain industries or problems that people have, but that don't have many good results that show up for them. They may only generate a handful of searches every month, but if someone is looking for exactly what you offer, then it can be a great source of highly-qualified traffic.

Mark Twain famously said "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." A modern equivalent might update it with analytics. When working on a blog, remember that traffic in and of itself isn't a good thing. It's only when you bring in highly-qualified traffic that wants to buy something your company offers that it matters. Popular blogs are nice. But for a business, if your blog isn't generating revenue, it's just another expense.