“Coca Cola Bottle” Gives Me The Most Traffic — Isn’t it Obvious? :-)

Posted in Uncategorized on February 19th, 2011 by fubarrio

So, I ran a ‘contest’ of sorts to see if anyone could ‘guess’ what keyword or keyword phrase sent me the most traffic.

It’s really no contest.  Probably the top 8 keyword phrases or so are some combination or derivation of  ‘Coke bottle‘, ‘Coke Bottle Shape‘ or something like that.  Crazy, huh?

So, there were several ‘takeaways’ that I wanted to share with you all in regards to this observation:

All of this traffic is just from some random images I put into my “Sex Sells” post about Subliminal Advertising and some Ad-art work in South America that caught my eye and made me laugh.  It has very little to do with the subject or topic of this site

Yes, it’s true that this isn’t a ‘commercial’ site and hasn’t been optimized for SEO purposes, but c’mon.  None…NONE of the comments/guesses were even on the right track.  It just goes to show:

1.) Our eyeballs and intuition are no match for STATS to tell what Google, (et al) think our site is about

2.) Big, popular topics drive a LOT more traffic than relatively obscure things like ‘do follow’ links

3.) Our TOOLS for determining traffic and focus of sites SUCK — if you aren’t looking at the sites’ stats you can pretty much ignore all those ’spy’ tools for telling you what’s going on (in my opinion), and, the biggest lesson.

4.) do NOT overlook the importance of having relevant and interesting images related to your subject matter and the power of ‘Google Images’ alone to drive traffic to a site.

Obviously, merely blogging about this pushes the Coke image further down the page, so maybe that effects my results going forward, but I thought it was an important lesson/reminder in the power of imagery…I’ve NEVER put that much emphasis on images and image tags, but it maybe time to revisit those age old assumptions about their relative importance in on page optimization.

I’ll follow up on this post to talk about some of the better guesses people threw out there…and that will give me a chance to throw around some ‘link love’.

DoFollow and Prosper,

r8r


112 Responses to ““Coca Cola Bottle” Gives Me The Most Traffic — Isn’t it Obvious? :-)”

  1. warstorm guide Says:

    Good insights! I’m really surprised how much impact images can have on google pushing traffic your way! Maybe you should keep going and post some coke content – maybe you can become a coca-cola affiliate?

  2. Parkcouture Says:

    Putting correct images tags or filename are good moves for SEO.

  3. art research Says:

    I remember adding one of my young sites to some social network, and it gave me over 1000 unique visitors a day! I developed my main site to such rankings for more than a year.

  4. Russell Davison Says:

    You’re spot on with Google Images. I’ve known this for a couple of years and found it to be true. I think that others may know the power of Google Images but don’t think that the extra 15 minutes to take a shot and embed it into a post is worth it. They are wrong.

  5. Joey @ Bargain CT Says:

    This is very interesting, and it gives me more ideas getting traffic. alt text for image is also good for keywords.

    Thanks for sharing this

  6. Juliemarg Says:

    I have a travel site and get between 200 and 500 visits per day from images. I tend to name the image the same thing I name the post – frequently my image is one of the very first in the image SERPS.

  7. Tom Says:

    Wow, who knew? I am tempted to write about a blog about Coca Cola Bottles now. I guess it can’t be any worse than my recent blog about Charlie Sheen.

  8. Internet Marketing Training DVDs Says:

    This is really good advice… getting images into google can make such a difference to your website traffic!

  9. The warrior Says:

    I wish I found your site before the contest was over. Any thanks for the great insight. I look foward to reading more.

  10. Mike Says:

    You made a very good point, because I was of course using a ’spy’ tool. I guess it’s time for another post that includes big name brand or topic.

  11. Russell Davison Says:

    You’re spot on with Google Images. I’ve known this for a couple of years and found it to be true. I think that others may know the power of Google Images but don’t think that the extra 15 minutes to take a shot and embed it into a post is worth it. They are wrong.

  12. Air Zimbabwe Flights Says:

    We have some images ranking in Google but they have never sent us any valuable traffic.

  13. Frank Says:

    Seems to be quite obvious why you get theese comments. No nofollow tags :)

  14. Copertine Says:

    well I always name my images for SEO including attribute …

  15. Daniel White Says:

    How in the world did you get most traffic from that/those keywords? I don’t see anything on your site relating to coke bottles, haha.

  16. Mobile Phone Says:

    very nice insights… its a real fact that images do have a great impact in increasing SERP’s

  17. Daniel J Says:

    So nothing to do with do-follow blogs after all. So how much traffic would you put down to being a do-follow blog?

  18. Amelia @ Coffee Gift Baskets Says:

    That’s really interesting…thanks for sharing the insights

  19. Andy Roberts Says:

    Yeah, google images can boost you up alot! this is pretty good , thanks man

  20. fubarrio Says:

    daniel…it’s ALL about those two images and the captions that i put next to them…go figure…the whole, “write deep relevant content” sorta went out the window on that one. I’m sure deep relevant content still works, just call this a shortcut if you find yourself needing a little ‘boost’.

  21. fubarrio Says:

    yeah…i agree (this is directed at the guy from air zimbabwe)…the “QUALITY” of the traffic is probably pretty low unless you are selling something that just sells better with images…like property (or escorts – har har).

  22. Charleston Wedding Photographer Says:

    Google images can help a ton. It’s useful to use them or your wasting that part of helping your SERPS

  23. Ceramic Insulating Paint Says:

    It sort of makes you wonder if the traffic you are receiving from those images is really traffic that is helping you? Just like a few other people have mentioned in previous replies is it the kind of quality traffic that is going to keep revisiting your blog?

  24. learn seo Says:

    Yes! Image with appropriate image “alt” attributes works most of the time. But not always i think. Whatever may be, one should never fail to include image and also “alt” attributes.

    thank you.

  25. noida city Says:

    Its very important from seo point of view to alt tag on your image, its get more traffic and site stretchability.

  26. Volvo Dealers Says:

    I have pictures in my website but I don’t get traffic from searches in Google Images

  27. reklama Says:

    Heh, hard to believe You know ;)

  28. Tekstforfatter Says:

    I really agree that our the tools for determining traffic could be much better. I get different results from Analytics, from Webmastertools and from the statistics at my domain host – and some of the top keywords at Webmastertools doesn´t even appear at the other sources!

  29. Emil Says:

    I have pictures in my website but I don’t get traffic from searches in Google Images thoo

  30. Design Belfast Says:

    Optimizing your website images so google can index them does help. It also makes your website layout and design more helpful and user friendly in the long run.

  31. up to 20 Says:

    This is helpful. Getting traffic and the keywords

  32. Sara Says:

    some sites having many back links and their back links is showing under Google yahoo link back list but still that sites not having good ranking can anyone tell me why that site not getting a good position on search engine ?

  33. hunk Says:

    fill comment to make a backlink…its good for SEO

  34. Edinburgh College of Professional Studies Says:

    Yes most people only respect the stats if they concern the HITS or TRAFFIC sections. But what drives those hits are the actual keywords or the way a searcher has reached your resource. Low end keywords that are low end to your site but actually “highly competitive” can give you some relief (like we saw in your coke example).

  35. Julie Says:

    That’s cool, pretty funny how you can rank for such random keywords just from having a few image filename/alt tag keyword mentions. Definitely not something to be overlooked as it can bring in traffic!

  36. Sandeep Says:

    I always name my images for SEO including attribute …

  37. DNN Developers Says:

    This is very nice. alt text for image is also good for keywords and titles for link.

    Thanks for sharing this

  38. iPad 2nd Generation Says:

    Optimizing images for keywords you target can drive a lot of traffic.

    That is very important if you do SEO.

    @Emil Upload images on your server and name them with keywords you target.

  39. biurai vilniuje Says:

    Well who could though about that ;) What is the stay on site time?

  40. fatwarrior Says:

    do follow links can be obscure but adds up

  41. SEO Boston Says:

    Image optimization is also beneficial and necessary for the website

  42. Christine @ EdenPure Heaters Says:

    Great information! Very important for seos to remember.

  43. web designers kent Says:

    Yep happens to me to, image searches drive traffic but how long do they stay on the site?

  44. Sefi Says:

    The section about Google Images and traffic are excellent, I actually never thoguht about getting decent amount of traffic from this service, but in the future I will focus on this bit as well.
    Thanks
    Sefi

  45. Pearl Says:

    I agree relevant images are very important. I often see blogs with very poor images and I know it turns me off as a reader.

  46. Nickelodeon Games Says:

    This is the page that I was looking for. Getting traffic and the keywords

  47. Buy Media Says:

    Busy traffic increases the site ranking.It helps in seo.It can be increased by back links.

  48. NathanC Says:

    damn i wished i would have found this before the whole contest was over. well maybe i’ve got some more luck in the next one

  49. rhea @ caribbean business Says:

    cool!! word coke got a lot of traffic nice info and idea too

  50. Charly Says:

    On my site, too, sometimes people come with a rather strange search requests. This is normal.

  51. Ben Says:

    When are you planning on following up like you said you would?

  52. Riung Says:

    Yup, I think the relevant images is very important for SEO

  53. ebooksearn Says:

    Great Idea ! What an idea Boss

  54. climacteric Says:

    So maybe its magic keyword :)

  55. Call Center Service Vancouver Says:

    Yeah perfect images really helps to fetch visitors but as some pals already said that it needs to be optimized properly so that images appear in Google Top for the keywords.

  56. Temecula Real Estate Says:

    That just figures! I’ve used SEOMOZ to check back-links and its funny how many images get picked up. I started adding images and video with keywords recently. Hopefully that will kick traffic up. – Joe

  57. ruined Says:

    that’s really interesting – but how do you get good google images listings? not everyone ends up at the top by chance i guess?

  58. Ocio Entradas Says:

    It’s a very interesting observation about properly tagged images. But my other thought from the post is that it’s not all about traffic. Commercial sites need conversions as well, so ranking and getting traffic from a search term that doesn’t drive conversions could be less profitable than ranking for niche terms that drive good conversion rate.

  59. Patagonia sale Says:

    Yes, you can get a decent amount of traffic from image search, but how muc of that traffic converts? What is the pageview average compared with a natural search visitor interested in your topic?

    I have tried but I don’t see the benefit of getting untargeted traffic…

  60. Panagiotis Says:

    Ι agree with the post. I think relevant images are beneficial for your website. They can keep the viewers interest for your website

  61. fubarrio Says:

    right. exactly….but the idea is to get TARGETED traffic, for something that you actually sell.

  62. fubarrio Says:

    of course.

  63. Anesthesia Billing Services Says:

    targeted traffic may not matter so much if you don’t sell anything, maybe you just want ad impressions.

  64. Webandrank Says:

    I just check out the site rankimage.com and for sure the image ranking for Coca Cola and all industry will be very important for the next years search engine marketing startegy.

  65. Vibration Plate Says:

    That’s really interesting and some good information for making my site better for SEO.

  66. Air Zimbabwe Says:

    tags are very important SEO tech. There are thousands of tech to increase your page rank.

  67. arik airlines Says:

    Increasing your page rank is very important we should use every possible way to upgrade our sites.This is very helpful tool which you prescribe.

  68. Common Pests Says:

    This is true. You can actually get traffic from just about any phrase even those outside your niche as long as they are highly searched and low in competition. But the question is, are these the right traffic or your “targeted traffic”?

  69. electricians leeds Says:

    sure the image ranking for Coca Cola and all industry will be very important for the next years search engine marketing starteg

  70. Kent Mauresmo Says:

    I know exactly which picture you are talking about. Haha.

    Ya, I get traffic to my site from the weirdest things as well. I actually blogged about a book author, and I get a lot for his name for some reason. I think because I added his name and the word wikipedia in the same post. So people search google his name + wikipedia and they arrive at my site. Hah

  71. Jorge Gonzalez Says:

    I never think that something like “Coca Cola Bottle” could be your primary keyword, is something amazing how the internet and search engines work.

  72. Long Beach Personal Injury Lawyer Says:

    I don’t seem to understand what your talking about. Where’s the images that you put a alt tag on? I don’t seem to see it? or Did I gt your post wrong? And for those, yes, tag are very essential in going to the top aside from keywords and titles.

  73. fubarrio Says:

    see the coke bottles in the subliminal message post?

  74. fubarrio Says:

    no probably not. but i think more to the point was, i didn’t put any images that WERE germaine to my target — i guess i’d need a target first…but COULD HAVE if i were running a commercial site and lurking here for some free SEO link juice.

  75. Kevin @ managing emails Says:

    I’m curious – did you have any trouble using coca cola as a keyword and trademark laws? It seems like there would be certain things that companies could have a fit about if a site uses their trademarked name. Not that it’s not worth testing it out. I was just curious.

  76. Cell Phone Types Says:

    Thanks man I think this is really good advice… getting images into google can make such a difference to your website traffic! :)

  77. voodoo Knife Block Says:

    one of my sites gets the most traffic because people are searchig for pictures of wonderwoman! The website actually sells toasters – so this traffic is entirely useless to me – but I do find it quite amusing.

  78. Wedding Singer Los Angeles Says:

    Optimizing images can help your content to rank in search engines. It’s important to pay attention to your blog post’s images as well.

  79. cheap tickets to zimbabwe Says:

    Yeah. definitely images through google really improves the website traffic. Good and informative thing is discussed here.

  80. Richardsons Holiday Village Says:

    Hi r8r,

    I have actually read a blog post recently that Google has given more importance in image names these past few Panda updates. Image names have now a great impact in putting your photos at the top image results in Google. I also agree with you that we should not ignore the stats that Google provides us. They’re better basis for what’s giving us more traffic, income, etc. than all software combined.

  81. Stocksicity Says:

    I’m with Julemarg. I try to name images around what I name the post.

  82. Catherine Says:

    Yes, images have great impact with the traffic. It is important how you label your images and how related they are to your content. Chances are, if you have an interesting file name for your images related to the content, you also gain readers.

  83. Kredit Says:

    Good article post. Yes think so that it is possible to get good pictures of visitors. Of course it would be nice if the picture is leading the way in search of Google Images.

  84. Louanne Leath Says:

    I got whacked by the Panda personally aswell…

    I’ve recently been searching for ways around the Google Panda update and I conducted a whole bunch of experimenting on my own niche sites.
    Below are some tips to consider:

    1) reduce bouncerate on your web sites
    2) remove/nofollow/noindex thin and poor quality pages of content
    3) increase Click Through Rate in the search results (E.g use crazy call to actions and things in your page titles)
    4) give much more increased value on your site (increase users onpage time)
    5) interlink your web site with optimized anchor texts
    6) use a privacy policy, about us, contact us, google maps location, SSL, address/phone number, images, subtiles, paragraphs, bulletpoints etc etc (virtually all “achievable” added quality factors you can think of)
    7) Obtain additional quality back links with good anchor text variation.

    Building backlinks must be done in a very diverse and steady manner.

    Another thing, I am a ‘beta’ tester of LinkALoha at the moment and i’m seeing GREAT results. I know they are going to open up several new spots soon, you guys should check it out. Those guys are great

  85. greenwatch Says:

    I really agree that our the tools for determining traffic could be much better. I get different results from Analytics, from Webmastertools and from the statistics at my domain host .

  86. bet24 Says:

    Coca cola is best company of drinks.Its drinks are really amazing.When we drink the coca cola.We feel amazing.
    I really like it…..
    Thanks for this post…….

  87. bet24 Says:

    Coca cola is best company of drinks.Its drinks are really amazing.When we drink the coca cola.We feel amazing.
    I really like it…..
    Thanks for this post…….

  88. in Mykonos Says:

    Really good insights and I think tags are very important SEO technique! Image names have now a great impact in putting your photos at the top image results in Google. Thank you for sharing this!

  89. alber @ stock exchange game Says:

    Wow, I guess it’s all about Coco cola!

  90. Electrical Contractor Houston Says:

    Good Post ! I am really surprised, it’s very unique way to SEO technique , Coca cola everybody knew about Coca cola it’s very nice drink, and i think mostly people use this cold drink. and i always like this.

  91. grace paul Says:

    What an Interesting Article.Really Very useful for us

  92. Noah ava Says:

    Wow! Great job….I really agree with your steps for increase traffic. But submission should be in legal process. Google panda searching illegal process in all over around .

  93. Neil Asher Says:

    The more I learn about SEO and keywords the more I realize it’s the most important thing online!

    Great insights thanks for sharing

    Neil Asher

  94. 32 inch led tv Says:

    I really agree that our the tools for determining traffic could be much better. I get different results from Analytics, from Webmastertools and from the statistics at my domain host – and some of the top keywords at Webmastertools doesn´t even appear at the other sources!

  95. Campman121 Says:

    I think that You made a very good point)))
    Besides))I am from Ukraine)

  96. gogo Says:

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  97. raghupal Says:

    Vey interesting point of view on .Good Stuff. Interesting detailed information. I also like the layout and design of your blog.

  98. Mumbai Hotels Says:

    I think power of Google Images but don’t think that the extra minutes to take a shot and embed it into a post is worth it.

  99. Steve Says:

    I came looking fro a free link but i am leaving thinking about how i can add strong images to my site.
    thanks
    Peace

  100. sandeep Says:

    It going very interesting .

  101. Loose Diamonds Says:

    This is really good advice…This is Fact that Optimizing images can help your content to rank in search engines..

  102. tax resolution Says:

    Being a tax professional, I am highly knowledgeable when it comes to tax resolution. I also try to give the most expert assistance that I could give so that my clients would be satisfied.

  103. Dental Insurance Diva Says:

    I didn’t know images had such an impact when it came to SEO. Thanks for sharing!

  104. mike@pegasus Says:

    Index images is still a very easy way to get traffic.

  105. Rich Says:

    I can really attest to the Google images portion of this post. They have certainly boosted my traffic since I started adding 1-2 pics per post.

  106. KOL Says:

    Really very useful article. Thanks for sharing.

  107. Mikroautobusu Nuoma Says:

    :) Thats a nice article. And a good strategy for SEO

  108. Imposto de Renda Says:

    I’m a cocaholic!

    Wow, I remember now… I still have some coke in the fridge hahaha

  109. Westminster Storage Says:

    This is very useful, I always look for new ways to gain traffic.

  110. Mark Shutes Says:

    As far as driving traffic by certain keywords goes, you really have to dig in and look at which keywords really drive conversions on your site. That’s the key. Some traffic converts better than others.

  111. web development services Says:

    Mostly webmaster neglect Alt tags and photo’s keywords which are very important thing in SEO. After read your post i am more confident about this theory that i should concentrate on these small, but very important things to get good traffic.

  112. fubarrio Says:

    mark. great point. that’s exactly right. i don’t sell coca cola bottles. when i was getting 200 visitors a day looking for them maybe i should have though, huh?

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