Harness The Power Of Statistics For Blogging Success
Think writing great posts is all you need to do to be a successful blogger? WRONG! There’s a big numbers game going on behind the scenes at a lot of A-list blogs and unless you know how to play the game you’re going to be left watching from the sidelines!
How can numbers and statistics help you monetize and optimize your site for success? By analyzing data easily obtained through Google Analytics, you can find crucial information about your site’s visitors that can help you take your site to the next level. Let’s take a look at a practical example that can help you!
Using Google Analytics, I found the top 5 most popular posts on my site and analyzed how my visitors found the posts and what actions they were taking after reading the post. Here are the results:
HOW READERS FIND THE POST: With it’s title filled with keywords and it being linked to with keyword anchor text, this post has a great ranking in Google and is by far the most popular post on my site. Readers find this post through search engines and from links on popular blogging sites.
WHO IS READING IT: Readers for this post are bloggers who are not necessarily interested in making money online yet but looking to expand their blog beyond the basic template. The readers are very targeted and focused on what they are looking for and will exit the site after after reading the post.
STRATEGY: Add extra links to the post to include links to other posts that I’ve written regarding template changes to keep readers on my site longer. Readers of this nature have been blogging for a couple of months are perfectly suited to be introduced to PayPerPost via my affiliate link which I’ve added to the end of the post.
HOW READERS FIND THE POST: Readers don’t find this post through Google or links but go there after entering my site through another post.
WHO IS READING IT: Obviously, it’s first time visitors to the site. After reading the page, visitors look at other posts on the site.
STRATEGY: These readers already like the basic idea of the site from the front page and are looking for more information. Readers are provided with a little bit of information and then hit right away with affiliate links. These are new readers who may not know about these programs and are the perfect candidates to be signed up! Once they’ve read the page, I’ve got them hooked and the page leads straight into my “Subscribe” link to make it easy to find me again.
3. How I Achieved Over 1500 Hits In My First Two Weeks
HOW READERS FIND THE POST: This is a flagship post that is found evenly through Google and links from other sites.
WHO IS READING IT: Readers are interested in increasing the amount of traffic to their site and are therefore looking to monetize it. After reading this post, visitors look for other posts about making money.
STRATEGY: Those looking to monetize their site are the perfect candidates to be signed up to Text Link Ads through an affiliate link at the end of the post. While the bloggers clicking it may be newer and not meet the Text Link Ads requirements yet, they’ll be on record as signed up under me and I’ll get the payment once approved.
4. AGLOCO Will Not Make Money Online! Ever!
HOW READERS FIND THE POST: This post is very well ranked in Google and linked to from some big name sites.
WHO IS READING IT: This post is read by people who want to make money online and are curious about whether AGLOCO will ever make money.
STRATEGY: This post is another flagship post that is a great advertisement for the site due to it’s big name links. While readers are looking to make money and are primed to be sent to affiliate links, I use the post to create stickyness by sending readers to other AGLOCO related posts which they are interested in. I’d rather keep these readers coming back to read about my other ways to make money than send them away to an affiliate program.
5. 6 Lessons Britney Spears Can Teach You About Blogging
HOW READERS FIND THE POST: ‘Britney Spears Blogging’ is not a popular search term and hits to this post come purely through links from other sites.
WHO IS READING IT: Readers of this post are active in the blogging community and are coming from other ‘like-minded’ blogs.
STRATEGY: With traffic coming from some A-list sites, it’s got credibility and those reading it are coming from similar blogs and probably know about affiliate programs. Therefore, I’ve avoided affiliate links and lead the reader straight into a “Subscribe” link at the end. This post has received a very positive reception and I’ve gained a lot of long term readers because of it. Going directly into a “Subscribe” link helps me gain a few more!
Analyzing your site’s data lets you understand your readers more and provide the content that they’re looking for. Without a strategy for your site, you’ll be blogging like a headless chicken and be creating just as much mess!
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Fantastic post, Kumiko. I love Google Analytics but now you’ve taught me even more about how I can help my blog using it. Thanks
by Tay
A useful plugin is Landing Pages.
It will show similar posts to readers that came from a search engine. This way they might stick around a bit loner
Nice post.
by Bob
@Bob - Thanks for the plugin tip! I’d love to know if you know of a version for Blogger?
by Kumiko
Very useful tip. What I am seeing lately is alot of good advice from the A-listers but often at too high a level … this article points up the “hands and knees scrubbing” sort of work that is what really mskes a blog grow. It’s one thing to look out toward the horizon and plan to plant corn on all the acres you can see … it’s a different thing entirely to walk each row of corn pulling weeds … but both tasks are needed.
by Dave Starr
That’s a good way to put it Dave! Most A-listers will write about their long term $100000 advertising strategy and not what a regular blogger can do today!
by Kumiko
This is a great post with great strategies for all bloggers. Showing a Subscribe link in the About page may look obvious, but I never thought about it.
Nice job Kumiko!
by Ronaldo Camacho
And talk about “obvious” … both Kumiko and I have seem to have so far failed to put up a separate, easy to spot “Advertise Here” page … I think I will work on that this afternoon. I just did my (tiny) Google stats for the month of May and guess what … there are people buying Google Ads targeted to my site … did I make it easy for them to find, did I show them the way? D’oh…….
By the way, K-san , not to flog a dead horse but it took 3.5 hours to leave this comment, Blogger was down for at least that long this morning (Tokyo time) …. again … my $10 a month no-name host has not had that much outage in the past _two_years_. And it works when people have pop-up blockers enabled which this format of Blogger comments will not.
by Dave Starr
I am competing with you on the keyword agloco scam….and the relif is that I have someone I know to keep me company there…on the first page!
by TheAnand
[…] For more concrete example of how one can get the most out of analyzing statistics can benefit a site, check out the Make Money Online Blog of the Week’s Kumiko’s CashQuest about the Harnessing the Power of Statistics for Blogging Success. […]
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