As a blogger, one thing you can do for your blog to increase your chances for success is to track your metrics. The main reason for doing this is to ensure you are reaching your goals. So before focusing on tracking your metrics, you’ll want to get very clear on what your goals are for your blog … then cross reference those goals with the data you receive from your tracking.
Then, you are in a position to match that data with software which tracks the metrics which determine whether or not your methods are working for you (I’ll get to more about that later in this post). For now, here are ten metrics to track:
1. Determine Your Blog’s Traffic Sources
Where is the traffic coming from? Once you know this, you will understand where to place your focus. If there are spots on your blog that you are placing attention but not getting much return in the way of traffic, then you can redirect your focus toward the areas that are getting you traffic.
2. How Many Unique Visitors Are You Getting?
If you’re getting a good amount of unique visitors to your blog, and that number is continually growing, then you are definitely doing something right! See if you can track what that is, and do more of it. However, as time goes on, you will want to focus less on the numbers of visitors and traffic and place more focus on the conversions and earnings from the traffic your blog is receiving.
3. And, How Many Repeat Visitors Are You Getting?
You know you have really hit a good rhythm with your goals for growth once readers who have been to your blog start returning for more. Try to track what it is that is bringing them back to your blog. Do you know how you are bringing the repeat visitors back? Perhaps it is your email series or campaigns, or your engaging blog post content, or maybe Google searches are calling them back.
4. What is the Number of Your Total Visitors?
The number of total visitors you have each day is a strong indicator of whether or not your blog content and other promotion methods are doing the trick. What you will want to know, is whether or not your visitors and readers are sticking around. If they are not, you may want to take a look at your target audience, and tweak your content for targeting your ideal reader reach.
5. Keep Track of Your Bounce Rate
How many of your total visitors “bounce” off of your blog without taking an action or spending any time reading your fabulous work? It is inevitable that the majority of sites have a bounce rate. What you will want to do, is take some time to dig around and see what the average bounce rate is for blogs with similar topics to yours. This will give you an idea of where you stand, and where you may need to put some extra work in.
6. Learn What Visitors Do on Your Blog Once They’re On It
Tracking what your readers do once they’re on your blog is important because you can see which posts they are reading and how often. You can also see which pages and menu items are getting the most clicks, and if you are offering freebies and opt-ins, you can test which ones are doing well.
7. What Are the Conversions Per Visit?
With this information, plus healthy calls to action, you can determine how many people convert per visit (for example, sign up to your list, or make a purchase) and compare that over time to your initial goals to see how things are going.
8. What is the Amount Earned Per Visit?
Of course, this isn’t something you’ll need to know for your blog unless you are monetizing it (or working towards monetizing it). If you have begun blogging for income, then knowing what you are making per visit is important to know – not only for the obvious reasons, but also so that you know how much you can invest in growing your blog. This helps you to keep your goals refreshed and expanding.
9. Which Pages of Your Blog Do Your Visitors Leave On (Exit Pages)
If you find that people are leaving on the same post or page a lot, you might want to check that page to see if you can optimize it further in order to keep people on your blog for a longer period of time. Tip –> Make your blog ‘sticky’. This means, add some internal links on your posts so that readers will stay on your blog to read more.
10. What Are Your Conversion Costs?
Once you are equipped with the number of visitors to your blog, and how much you’ve earned during that same time period, you can begin to keep track of conversion costs via your blog metrics. This means that you will have the information to determine the costs of running and maintaining your blog in comparison to what you are earning from it. Believe me, this information is absolute gold.
Metrics that you track should be based on your goals (remember, the list of goals we talked about at the beginning of this post that you should create). If you’d like to read a bit further about how to establish your blog goals and metrics, please check out my post here. Each goal that you are striving for should have a way to track your results. Make sure you have Google Analytics installed! It is the most detailed web analytics tool, and gives you super in depth information about the traffic you receive and what happens with your traffic on your blog.
If you’re looking for a nice and simple way to get started, I recommend the MonsterInsights Google Analytics tool (if you’re using WordPress). It’s very user and beginner friendly, and offers you a way to add a Google Analytics dashboard without needing to know a bunch of code. The MonsterInsights dashboard allows you to view your stats from within your own blog, and is less overwhelming than the Google Analytics tool itself. If this is of interest to you, go here to find a nicely laid out tutorial to help you on your way!
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