Thalasar Ventures

So you like to blog. Of course you do!  Blogging is fun.  It’s fun to write whatever you want as the feelings come to you.  It’s your own personal vent space.  Blogging is more fun, however, when people read the vent.  There is no satisfaction in the world like reading supportive comments from a swath of readers after a tirade on poor customer service.  Wait—yes, there is!  Having someone from a book publisher write you and offer you money to create a book from your blog is probably much more satisfying than a few scattered comments by visitors that don’t happen to think that your writing is fit for a middle school yearbook.  Visitors rule.  You like them.  You want more of them.

But how do you attract them?

Most bloggers have this quandary, especially if they are new to the blog game.  That’s why Google Analytics is probably a good download choice if you are trying to increase traffic to your blog.  Google’s analyzing tool can tell you things about your blog like:

1) Which of the referring sites sends you the most traffic

2) Which of your articles have the lowest “bounce”

3) Which keywords reel them in

4) Which visitors are subscribing to your site and your email list

5) Which of your articles made the most money from AdSense

It can tell you a lot more than that, but these are just the essentials that most people use it for.  If you are a geek, or a geek-in-training, there are tools that help you see what your visitors do within the blog so you can move things around to make it easier for them to click on links.

Knowing what to write about to bring in the most AdSense dollars is a very big deal if your blog was created for the purpose of generating a little revenue.  It’s also important if you are trying to be the next “Julia and Julia.”  Attracting return readers is important.  You want to show those publishers that you have content that readers enjoy and that you already have a build in fan base.  It’s not enough anymore to have a good idea, you have to show that you are half-way there.

Installing the tool isn’t difficult.  Some blogs already have standard Google Analytics plug-ins waiting to go.  Perhaps, you already have it and want to become a power user—there’s a Google Analytics blog provided by Google to help you make the most of this incredible (and free) tool.