Twelve Months of Free Bing Traffic: Are These Numbers Good?

I was looking through my Bing Webmaster Tools account for Wildfoot Explores today, and I decided to pull up the full twelve month view. This is where time begins to show you what you have actually built. One blog may not appear to be doing much during its first week or even its first few months, but when you continue writing and publishing, everything slowly begins to stack.

Over the past twelve months, Wildfoot Explores has received 117,000 impressions and 1,600 clicks through Bing. The website has an average click through rate of 1.38 percent. These are all free impressions and free visitors who found my content through a search engine. I also use Google Search Console, but Bing has always performed better for my website, and Bing Webmaster Tools has become one of my favourite tools for understanding how people discover my content.

What I enjoy most about Bing Webmaster Tools is that it gives me more than one large traffic number. I can examine the keywords people searched, the pages they found, the devices they used and the countries they came from. It gives me a much clearer picture of what is happening behind the website. Instead of guessing what my audience might want, I can see what people are actually searching for.

Looking Beyond the Total Number

The Pages section is usually where I spend the most time. I like to go through the list and compare the number of impressions each article received with the number of people who actually clicked. My article titled “Why Bigfoot Is Real: The Evidence Most People Ignore” received almost 8,900 impressions and 241 clicks. It had an average position of 6.13 and a click through rate of 2.71 percent. This page did not receive the highest number of impressions on my website, but it received considerably more clicks than several articles that appeared in search more often.

My werewolf article received approximately 12,500 impressions but only 69 clicks. My article about the origins of skinwalkers received around 10,300 impressions and 70 clicks. Those articles are being displayed by Bing, but people are not clicking them at the same rate as the Bigfoot article.

That comparison gives me something useful to work with. It tells me that getting impressions is only part of the job. The title, description and subject must also give the person a reason to click. It also shows me which articles may need a new title, a better description or an updated opening.

Another page that caught my attention was my Sasquatch tracking article. It received approximately 1,400 impressions and 77 clicks, giving it a click through rate of 5.36 percent. That is one of the strongest click through rates shown in my results. Even though it did not receive the same exposure as some of my larger articles, the people who saw it were much more likely to visit it.

Seeing Where the Traffic Comes From

Bing also shows me where my search audience is located. The United States produced approximately 76,800 impressions and 1,200 clicks during the twelve month period. Canada produced around 8,500 impressions and 169 clicks, while the United Kingdom produced approximately 8,800 impressions and 77 clicks.

Wildfoot Explores also appeared in searches from Germany, China, France, Brazil, Italy, Japan and Spain. The numbers from some of these countries are small, but I still find it incredible that a website I built from my home in Medicine Hat, Alberta, is being shown to people around the world.

What caught my eye was the click through rate by country. Canada came in at 1.99 percent, higher than both the United States at 1.56 percent and the United Kingdom at 0.88 percent. That tells me Canadian readers are engaging a bit more with what they find, which gives me a direction to think about. I could look closer at which Canadian topics are getting discovered and decide whether more Canadian Sasquatch content would strengthen that audience even further.

Keywords Tell Me What People Want

The Keywords section is another part of Bing Webmaster Tools that I use regularly. It shows me the actual subjects bringing people to Wildfoot Explores. Some of the leading searches include "Patterson Gimlin film," "Bigfoot," "werewolf," "is Bigfoot real or fake," "skinwalker," "werewolves," "is Bigfoot real," "Mothman" and "Missing 411."

This information does more than tell me how someone arrived at the website. It helps me plan what I should do next. If Bing shows me that a certain article or keyword is gaining attention, I can return to that page, update the information and strengthen the content. I can also build related articles that answer the next question a reader might have.

One example stood out. The keyword "Patterson Gimlin film" produced approximately 4,500 impressions, but only one click is shown for that exact search term. The average position was 8.70, meaning the article was appearing on the first page in many searches, but people were rarely selecting it. That is a clear sign the title or search description needs work so it better matches what people are actually looking for when they search for the film.

On the other hand, "is Bigfoot real" produced around 1,400 impressions and 25 clicks, and "is Bigfoot real or fake" produced another 1,600 impressions and 16 clicks. People are still actively searching for direct answers about this subject, and my website is being placed right in front of them.

Understanding the Devices People Use

The Device section shows that desktop searches produced most of my Bing traffic, with approximately 93,800 impressions and 1,200 clicks. Mobile brought in around 23,200 impressions and 384 clicks, and actually edged out desktop on click through rate, 1.66 percent compared to 1.31 percent. That tells me something worth remembering. Even when most of my visibility comes from desktop, mobile readers are just as likely, if not more likely, to click through and stick around. If someone lands on the page from their phone and it's slow to load or hard to read, that opportunity disappears fast.

Turning Bing Information Into a Content Strategy

The part I appreciate most about this information is how it can guide everything else I am building. I have an active Wildfoot Explores community on Facebook, and I now have years of articles sitting on my website. Bing can help me decide which of those articles should be updated and brought back into the conversation.

If I see an older blog gaining impressions or clicks, I can revisit it and make sure the information is current. Once the article has been improved, I can create a new discussion on Facebook and direct interested readers toward it. This gives an older article another opportunity to reach people instead of allowing it to sit untouched in the archives.

The process also works in the opposite direction. If a subject creates a strong discussion on Facebook, that reaction can tell me the topic deserves a deeper article on the website. My social media community and my search traffic do not have to operate separately. Each one can teach me something about the other.

That is one of the most important lessons I have learned here at Wealthy Affiliate. We are not only learning how to write articles. We are learning how to connect a website to search engines, understand the information those tools provide and use that knowledge to bring attention to the content that matters most to us.

If it were not for Wealthy Affiliate and Jay’s classes, I would not have known how to connect these tools or understand what these numbers were telling me. I would probably have looked at the total traffic, thought it was interesting and moved on. Now I understand that the real value is found when you look deeper into the pages, keywords, countries and devices.

Are These Numbers Good?

In my eyes, I think these numbers are okay. What excites me most is that they show something positive could be waiting on the horizon for Wildfoot Explores. The website is appearing in search results, people are clicking through and some of my older articles are continuing to bring in free traffic.

I would be intrigued to hear what you guys think. Do you consider 117,000 impressions and 1,600 clicks good numbers for a niche website, or do you think they are simply okay like I do? Is there anything in these results that stands out to you or something you would focus on improving first?

Well, I had better get at her. I have a few other things I need to get done, and then I will touch base with all of you here again.

Keep building. Keep dreaming. Keep believing. Keep going.