Generating Traffic with Google Analytics

Blogging is still relatively new to me. With the added use of Google Analytics, I am able to get a better idea of what works and what does not. Since I am new to both, I figured I go simple and use the tools to just generate visitors to my blog with the hopes of a posted comment or two. Every week I post my new blog entries onto social media sites. This includes Google + and Facebook and I added Twitter and LinkedIn into the mix to widen my audience range. However, I was not seeing a high rate of visitors to my page. I chose to look at several different measurements to figure out why this is. These include the visitors and visitors flow tools, the bounce rate, the different traffic sources, in-page analytics and the real time reports. 

Visitors

The visitor tool was the obvious first step in analyzing the data. It gives a break down of new visitors versus unique visitors, the different browser each visitor uses as well as where they are located (“Lesson 5: Google”, 2013). I can easily see what days of the week people are visiting the blog and how long they are staying on each page. I found I had the most unique visitors on my page on a Sunday compared to Wednesday. This showed me Sunday was a more successful posting day. However, the visitors stayed on my blog longer on Wednesday than Sunday. This means the content posted on Wednesday was more intriguing but should be posted at a better time. From here I looked at the visitors flow.

Visitors Flow

The visitor flow report can be used to visualize the ‘flow’ of visitors on my blog (Gerson, 2011). When looking at the visitor flow chart, I found most people dropped off on the starting page. This showed me something about the front page was not inviting enough to keep visitors. Only a third of these visitors moved on to a new page but once on a new page most of them remained. There was a low number of drop offs on the first and second interaction pages. Check out the screenshot below.

It helps me determine at which point people are leaving the blog and I can use this information to keep visitors on my site.

Bounce rate

I chose the bounce rate because it can also help me determine the performance of my entry pages based on the actions the visitors may or may not have taken (Peters, 2012). A high bounce rate could mean the content is not shaped for the audience visiting my site (Kaushik, 2010). On Thursday, the bounce rate was at 100%. Due to this, I reposted my blog on different social media channels. On Sunday, the bounce rate had dropped to 56%. That is still high but puts me in the right direction. This connects back to the visitors tool that noted Sunday was a good day for posting. It seems as if I am to post in the middle of the week, the content has to be specific to the audience that will see it. Or to get the most interaction I should post on the weekends.

Traffic Sources

The traffic sources tool shows where people are finding my blog. A direct traffic source is when a visitor entered the blog URL directly. Referring sites or traffic sources represent other websites that link to my blog, including other classmate blogs, websites or social media sites (Kaushik, 2010). When looking at my data, 75% of my traffic came from a referral source and the other 25% came from a direct source. The majority of my visits came from Facebook. This tells me it is the most popular among the social media sites where I posted my blog. Combine that with the bounce rate information and the graph of which day people visited and I can increase the number of visits by posting more often to Facebook and on the right days. It could also help me try to increase my number of direct source visits by building awareness of my blog on social media.

In-page Analytics

The in-page analytics tool shows which parts of the website attracted the most interaction. The percentage of is shown for every click a visitor made. It gave me a comparison view of whether visitors were clicking directly on the blog post or on the title of it on the sidebar. I can also click on each post to see what links the visitors looked at from within the post. None of the links within the posts were clicked on. This could be due to layout design or lack of interest in the topic. My blog is dark colors and the links are in a light grey. The links may not have stood out enough to prompt a visitor to click. It also helps me realize I need to evaluate the content to make it worth clicking on.

Real-Time

With the real-time reports, I can view the activity as it happens on my site. This helps me figure out which pages are most active and the best referral sources that may be driving traffic (Gerson, 2011). As soon as I publish a new blog post and share it on social media, I can use these reports to see whether or not people are instantly reacting to my post. It can show me whether Facebook is a faster referral source than Google + or if the content of the blog results in a view to the website.

Overview

All of the above data has given me a better picture as to what works for my blog. It has shown me the best days to post and which platform to share it on. From here I can use the data to enhance other features and start creating goals for the blog other than generating traffic. My next steps will be to make the blog more intriguing to increase visit duration and create different content to illicit responses out of those visiting my site. If you have any suggestions of other tools that could be beneficial, please comment below.

References

(2013). Lesson 5: Google Analytics. PI Reed School of Journalism. Retrieved February 18, 2013 from ecampus.wvu.edu

Gerson, R. (2011). 10 new google analytics features you need to start using. Mashable Social Media, Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2011/11/30/google-analytics-new-features/

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0: The art of online accountability & science of customer centricity. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing.

Peters, M. (2012). How to get the most out of google analytics. Mashable Social Media, Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2012/01/04/google-analytics-guide/