Make the most of your blog traffic
Posted on | January 18, 2010 | View Comments
Source: elvis_payne @ flickr
Your blog is a tool, and it is one that you are probably passionate about. The key is to keep in mind that you are authoring your blog for a reason. Your visitors will sense that in your posts. A huge interest of mine is being able to make an online presence, a place at the table where you have followers with similar interests. It takes time to build a following, and it takes careful planning and review of your traffic. The answers are in what has happened in the past, as any statistics professor will stress to you.
The most powerful tool you have at your finger tips to shape and tweak the layout of your blog are your traffic analytics. I really like to use Google Analytics, because of the detail that it allows you to drill down to. It will also let you integrate your AdSense account if you monetize your site.
With the traffic analytics in place, you will be able to see where you traffic is coming from. You can see what keywords drove them to your sites from search engines, or what advertising mediums are working best for you. The integration with AdWords is also there, so you can see how those PPC visitors are spending time on your page. The stats will vary by content, but you may find that posts you put up on Friday nights or Saturday get the most views. You will be able to see trends like that, and act on them. Again, don’t under estimate such simple metrics, because the truth is again in the stats of the past. Watch things like your comments, and find out what sparks the most interest. I find that if I follow along with hot topics in the media, and make references to that story in my post or build off it, my traffic will increase. It really comes down to the probability where if you are part of a term that is being searched highly on Google, your chances of being discovered are much better.
Of course the second part of this analysis is having an idea of what goes on when people are actually on the pages for your site. A third would be search engine optimization You can make the most of the screen real estate and keep visitors on your page by knowing where they click, or what words keep people most intrigued.