Laura’s Blog

Trying to figure out where to establish your social media presence? Check out Google AdPlanner. Every month, Google updates its list of the 1,000 largest sites worldwide, based on unique visitors.

The site is intended to help you choose sites on which to target Google ads, but it’s also helpful for overviewing sites within your industry that get lots of hits. As with most Google apps, you can filter the data multiple ways to fine-tune the results (you don’t need a Google account to view the list, but you do need one to filter the results).

In the “social networks” category, for instance, the most-visited sites for English-speaking visitors are:

1. Facebook
2. MySpace
3. LinkedIn
4. Ning

Blogging Resources & Services

1. Blogspot.com
2. WordPress.com
3. Blogger.com
4. Typepad.com
5. Squidoo.com

Keep in mind that these results apply to Google searches only – other search engines use different parameters to rank sites.

Some of the other categories included in the list:

• Air travel sites
• Banking & personal finance
• Cooking & Recipes
• Dictionaries & Encyclopedias
• How to & Expert content
• Jobs
• News & Current Events
• Online games

…and many more

I’m still learning to use AdPlanner, so if you come up with any interesting ways to use it, please share them with us.