I saw that a Techorati search for “knitting AND payperpost” brought someone to Big Bucks Blogger. Traffic!
I was curious because I wondered a) why anyone would do that search and b) which other blogs had recently discussed both items in one article. Arriving at Technorati, I saw a post by Andy Beard outranked all those written by knitters! Oh well. 
Evidently, Andy, who I strongly suspect does not knit, scored the #1 spot for this search at Technorati because he recently wrote a rather good article about choosing your social bookmarking tools wisely. In that article, he said:
If you are a Digg user, let’s be totally honest - do you want the hottest knitting pattern for this coming season (yeah knitters will be thinking about Winter clothing already) appearing on the front page of Digg?
Huh? Why wouldn’t someone want to see this on the front page of Digg?!?
But enough of the sort of informal punctuation prevalent at knitting blogs.
The fact is, knitting and crafts articles do not fit Digg categories. Since an article must be placed in an appropriate category when submitted, with a few notable exceptions, knitting articles are, by Digg fiat, excluded from Digg.1
This is fine. Knitters not only don’t mind; they are for the most part oblivious of Digg. Digg has a particular focus; so do knitting blogs. The focal points differ.
This fact underscores one of the points Andy made: It’s pointless to add links to social bookmarking sites that do not apply to your niche. A knitting blogger can gain absolutely nothing by including a Digg button at their site.
Now, because traffic to knitting blogs is something that interests me, I will also comment on something else Andy said:
Until Digg caters for all topic areas, there is room for clones. Knitting is probably a bigger niche than Tech industry news.
I’m not sure knitting is a bigger niche than Tech industry news. I suspect the broader category of needlecraft is — but I could be wrong on that.
What I will say with some confidence: I don’t think anyone knows which area gets more traffic.
I also think that accessible traffic measuring tools, particularly Alexa, seriously undercount traffic to hobby blogs relative to Tech industry blogs. Based on a sample of three blogs, the relative traffic at a hobby blog vs. a tech news blog, as reported by Alexa errs by as much as four orders of magnitude.
I also think the size of the hobby blog niche is underestimated for other reasons. Here’s an example: Tech bloggers learn of “hot new things” first. So, they use social bookmarking. They then tend to assume that popularity in social bookmarking is more or less indicative of traffic.
However, hobby bloggers to lag tech bloggers in joining “hot new internet trends”, like social bookmarking and they lag a lot. In fact, why not assume the difference could result in 4 orders of magnitude in mismeasure once again?
Let’s face it, when it takes 20 hours to knit a sweater, and you also have a job, and you also blog, you don’t spend your time being the first to discover all the zillions of social bookmarking services. This is particularly the case when you don’t particularly care about traffic. (And many hobby bloggers don’t care all that much about traffic.)
Interestingly, other social networking tools caught on early in knitting circles; many are still used. Web rings are still used; bloglines seems to be the feed method of choice. Why? Beats me. Yahoo groups emailing lists drive loads of traffic; so do groups of friends talking to each other over on LiveJournal.
Digg? Stumble On? My knitting blog has been stumbled on… once or twice. But heck, my knitting blog was once linked by Instapundit. (Though real traffic came when I was linked by The Yarn Harlot; she sent me lots of high quality traffic!)
As to other social networking tools, some may be used by knitters — but use lags other niches.
I know my experience is anecdotal, but one data point is better than zero, so I’ll relate it. When I became interested in SEO etc., I signed up for both blogcatalog and mybloglog.
Now, I frequently find people joining my neighborhoods.
Many are posties. Many are joining Big Bucks Blogger, my 15 unique visit a day “yet another SEO-niche-blog-money making” blog. Few None are knitters visiting my 800 unique visit a day knitting blog.
When I surf knitting sites, I receive zero automatic enrollments in a knitting blog-catalog neighborhoods.
So, I don’t think these are used widely by knitters- yet.
So, yes, Andy is correct to advise choosing your social bookmarking tools with care. In some niches, you would be the first to use them- which may be good or it may be bad.
But I’ll close by returning to the title of this post: Weird searches can really bring traffic; “knitting and payperpost” brought people here. I bet it brought a few to Andy’s blog.
Of course, following the advise of SEO experts, now that I’ve recognize the traffic driving power of that search term, I should repeat it; I have by posting this article.
I figure I will now the first place spot for that search.
I plan to hold it a until the next time Andy tries to boost his SEO for knitting by dropping the “Kn” word! But if he does that, I will retaliate by using the high octane term that once brought hundreds to my knitting blog: “Black Strippers”.2 Now, that’s a search term that drives traffic!
Notes:
1. Those unfamiliar with knitting blogs might be stunned to discover there are a few knitting articles that could, conceivable qualify for a Digg category.
2. Strippers are a device used to strip stitches off the needles on a knitting machine. Passap color coded their strippers for different types of knitting; they strippers came in black, blue, orange and black. If you ask nice, I’ll show pictures!