To be honest, I didn’t start thinking about Google Analytics or SEO for blogging until a few months ago. I based my blog growth on my number of followers on various platforms or the number of comments on my posts. After learning more about analytics, I’ve got to say there is something really motivating about being able to see how many people are visiting your site daily, where they live, and who is referring them to your site. What’s even more motivating is knowing that you have the power to increase your blog growth with Search Engine Optimization (SEO!) and analytics tools.
To those of you who are creating great content and feel like it’s not being seen, the following resources will be super helpful for you!
1. Dapper Fox Design has an amazing SEO Basics Mini Series that I can’t get enough of. Each post is a good reminder that there are lots of simple but effective ways to increase your site’s SEO.
2. As much as it’s great to have lots of people visit your blog, it doesn’t really mean that much if they visit and then immediately leave. Having a high bounce rate means people are visiting your site and then moving on, rather than clicking around and reading more content. Cat Crawford has a very informative post on understanding your bounce rate and lowering it.
3. I use to always rely on WordPress stats but I’ve more recently been using Google Analytics to get a more detailed understanding of my visitors and referrers. Here is a list of things all bloggers should know about Google Analytics, courtesy of Cocochic.
4. Interested in learning more about how to use keywords in your blog posts? Make sure you bookmark this post on The SITS Girls all about the Google Keyword Planner Tool!
Do you have any SEO tips or tricks that you use to grow your blog? I’d love to here them!
Emma @ BooksandBoardies says
Thanks for sharing these links, I have just started using google analytics and it’s definitely something I could do with learning a lot more about. This has come at just the right time, hopefully it’ll give me a few tips to improve things around the blog. x
Jennifer says
So happy this came at a good time! Good luck with working on your blog! :)
Lynn Claerhout says
Thank you for another very interesting post!
I try not to focus on SEO too much since my blog is non-commercial. I do find it interesting to read about, though. For example, I recently learned about slugs. Also, I learned that questions make good headlines because people use them as key words in search engines.
Jennifer says
Using questions as headlines is such a good idea! I’ve never thought about it like that. Makes so much sense. :)
Krystal says
Thanks so much for these extra resources. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around Google Analytics – I thought I had a good idea and then I realised there was sooooo much more to it. And I had no idea how important SEO was – I mean I know everyone says it is but… really…. :-)
Jennifer says
I’m just learning Google Analytics too! There is really SO much to it. I feel like I’ll be learning for months haha.
Kelsie says
Thank you so much for this! I just started blogging and am slowly learning all of these behind-the-scenes things that bloggers do. Definitely not easy but very good to learn.
Jennifer says
No prob, Kelsie! Isn’t it crazy how much there is to learn about blogging? I feel like I’m always figuring out new things. :)