This video provides a brief overview of how to use the Google Analytics. It is one of the best tools used by many people to monitor blog traffic and improve results online. Best part is it’s free of charge!

I use it on a daily basic to monitor how my sites are doing. You can get so much information about your site’s traffic using Google Analytics such as finding out where your visitors are coming from, what content they are seeing and what is most popular, how long they stay on the site and how many pages are viewed. The information made available to me through Google Analytics enables me to write key articles that I know people want to read about by just looking at what keyword searches are being used in search engines like Google.

Here is a small summary of what’s available. More can be seen in the video at the end.

Dashboard
The dashboard is the home page for your results. It shows how many visits you’ve had over a certain period. It also provides the site usage information which basically tells you the total number of visits, page views, average time spent on the site, bounce rate and how many new visits to your site.

Visitor’s overview
This section tells you the total number of people that visited your site in a certain period. You can change this period using the calendar tool provided. It also shows you how many absolute unique visits you’ve had which basically means all those that don’t include your own. The time spent on the site is given which is also very important information. If none of your visitors spend more than 10 seconds on your site, then something is wrong. You can use this sum to try and improve the performance of your site. Think of ways you could increase the average time spent on your blog.
 
Traffic Sources
This piece of information is vital. It tells you where all your traffic comes from and what the top traffic sources are. Also the keywords that people use to find your site.

Content
Again this is also great information to find out what the top content is on your site that gets read.

It’s very easy to set up Google Analytics, all you need to do is signup and insert the code Google Analytics generates for your blog into your file and upload.

On so many forums I see people asking for links because they believe they will be able to drive more traffic and make their blog popular a lot faster. It’s not as easy as that believe me. Your site will not get popular overnight.

Making a blog successful takes time so you have to be patient.

I have had this website BloggerHolic for 4 months now and on average I get about 120 visits a day which is not bad for a young blog. I have 371 links to my site that Yahoo found and most of these are link to my site automatically, in other words I don’t have to do anything other that write good quality content that people will want to link to. I’ve learnt that the best articles that work for me are those with bullet point or numbered lists in them, they tend to get linked to a great deal more than ordinary length posts written in essay format.
 
This is some of the web sites that have helped me get blog traffic.

• I liked this article written by Darren Rowse at Problogger. The 31 Days to Building a Better Blog
  You are guaranteed to learn so many things you didn’t know. Follow through with the ones you feel conformable with.
• I like to use Google Analytics. Learn how to use your stats. I can see how may unique visits I get every day, which is sending me the most traffic, what content on my site get more page views. You’ll soon realise you can’t live without it. 
• Add your blog to blogexplosion and add a small banner on your blogexplosion account at http://www.blogexplosion.com/
  It doesn’t cost anything and It brings me 10-40 new visits a month. My banner is rotated across the top of all my pages of BlogExplosion giving me more opportunities to generate additional traffic to my blog.
• I use Wordpress blogging platform so when I publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services such as technorati, pingomatic etc (you can add as many services as you want). For those of you not using Wordpress you can use:
• http://pingoat.com and http://autopinger.com
  Both are excellent
• Know your competition
  I use http://www.alexa.com/ and http://wholinkstome.com/ the ultimate SEO tool. It will show you your Google page rank and how many links the search engines have found.

I hope the above tips have been useful. You are welcome to leave comments and share your best blogging tip.  

I discovered StumbleUpon on Google Analytics when I saw how much traffic this site was getting fro it. I didn’t know of it until i found out someone obviously discovered my site and added it on StumbleUpon.  Nearly 50% of my traffic comes from StumbleUpon alone. 
StumbleUpon works like a TV where you can use its very own toolbar that behaves like a remote if you like and ‘channel-surf the internet’. Members can surf the Internet with the StumbleUpon toolbar a bit like flicking through channels on a TV. In doing this you can imagine how many sites there are competing with yours, so how do you make your site stand out from the rest so users stay on your site rather thank flick through to the next? 
In this article, I will suggest some easy steps you can take to attract more StumbleUpon users and keep them on your site rather than have them stumble away.

1. What you Blog is about

Otherwise known as the core statement whihc tells a visitor what your blog is about. On my site I have this on the right hand sidebar above the fold which means users can see it without having to scroll down the page. The description only needs to be a couple of lines summarising what your blog is about. Make it short but to the point.  If a StumbleUpon user can catch sight of something that interests then straight away then they’re likely to stay longer.

2. Use influential visual cues

Ask yourself this, when you switch channels on a TV looking for something interesting to watch what is it that you look for? The decsion you make to stick to a channel or flick to another is frequently determined by its visual cues. Even with no sound or a program in another language can attract people simply by its visual cues.
The same applies to websites. If your blog has powerful visual clues for example a picture of money on the header like on this site, tells the reader that the site has to be about money or a picture of a couple has to be a dating site then those are powerful visual cues that can communicated a thousand words. 

3. Move your content above the fold

Above the fold means everything a users sees before they have to scroll down. When you search the net and come across a website you often read what is at the top and if you like it you scroll down to read on, however if you don’t like what you see straigh way chances are you move on right? StumbleUpon users have thousands of sites to flick through so it’s important that you keep all the key information that you think visitors will want to read about above the fold.

If you look at my blog home page you will notice that that I have all my recent articles appear at the top and on the rest of my pages I have the most popular posts and top posts for today all appearing above the fold. I also use the top part of my sidebar to introduce my blog.

4. Be original and appealing

I’ve had people tell me that the theme is not that important its more to do with the content you offer. Those people in my opinion are wrong. I know I judge a site based on its presentation. A good theme can give you a personality straight away. It’s like they say with interviews…first impressions count and it’s the same principle here. An attractive website design will attract users and encourage them to stay longer.

If you use Wordpress you will be fascinated with the number of themes you have available to choose from. Even if you like a theme but don’t like the colours its very easy to customise using the style sheet.

I hope the above tips will help you. The importance in all these tips is to show people that have stumbled on your site what it has to offer at first glance. This should help you get more traffic from StumbleUpon and improve your readership almost instantly.

Check the performance of your site and make changes if required and keep adding new content. You must know how many visitors your websites gets, which country your visitors come from and which pages they view. To find this information check the web stats, this can be accessed via your hosting CPanel. Also check the affiliate statistics report if your use any affiliates. Google Analytics is by far my favorite and it gives you all the information you need to know and it’s Free.

There are so many blogs online and more and more being created everyday. With so many free blog tools available it’s no wonder they are becoming so popular. One of the many advantages of blogging, is that the site is made of a few templates only which means easier management unlike, other sites that are made up of several pages. The bonus is you don’t need to be at the same computer to get access to your files, you can be anywhere in the world as long as you have access to the internet and then all you have to do is simply log into your admin panel and start creating, editing pages. Blogging tools like Wordpress also make blogging an exciting project as it offers so many features and plugins you won’t want to stop blogging because it makes it all that more fun. What’s more is that you have thousands of templates to choose from each with its own unique designs, feel and personality unlike some templates out there that just offer standard templates that all look the same.
Making the website is the easy part but what comes next is even more challenging and it can even be exciting if done correctly and consistently. The key is to remember traffic is important and without it your website wont be getting anyone coming to visit it.
I’ve built a few websites and the tips I am going to give you will show you the steps I take when creating a successful blog website. I can’t guarantee your success but I can help you by providing you with a checklist that I use to create my own blog websites. Hopefully you can use this step-by-step guide to create YOUR very own successful blog website. Remember there should be no “Under construction” no broken link, no unfinished posts when you start marketing.

1. Decide on a domain name for your site www.myblog.com. It is a good idea to choose a domain name that includes effective keywords and something catchy that visitors to your site will remember
2. Choose and download a custom blog template from a blogging tool like Word Press and Moveable Type. Word press is my favorite and is very popular. http://www.wordpress.org
3. Modify your blog look and feel. By this I mean changing the logo, replacing the standard footer, removing any unwanted sidebar widgets.
4. Research keywords - a very good keyword tool is Google Adwords Keyword Tool. You only need to enter one keyword or phrase and it shows several keyword variations. You can even order these by Keyword search volume, cost and ad position estimates or search volume trends. Google Adwords also allows you to search for site-related keywords. Another good keyword suggestion tool is Word Tracker.
5. Add social bookmark links for visitors to use so they can bookmark your site. These are available as plugins with blog tools like Wordpress. These can be added at the very every of every post on your site.
6. Use Meta Tags in all your posts. Again these are available as plugins
7. Use SEO title tags – what most people don’t know is that post titles are also used as title tags by Word Press. By using title tags you can ensue this doesn’t happen. You want to be using catchy keywords in your title that you have researched in step 4 above.
8. Create keyword rich categories but keep them short and not descriptive
9. Enable automatic trackback and ping functionality. These can be managed from your blog admin panel very easily.
10. Create Feedburner Pro account and activate feed tracking.
11. Sitemap – using sitemaps is important to ensure search engines like Google know your pages and how often they change and it makes your website easier to crawl by search engine spiders. You may want to investigate Google Sitemap Generator. www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/
12. Create a resource section on your blog, for example within your blogroll. Make sure you don’t just list any. Identify trustworthy blogs and websites that are relevant to your blog topic that others will find useful.
13. Monitor your site statistics to check the performance of your site and make changes if required and keep adding new content. Google Analytics is an excellent tool to use and it’s free. Just register your site, place the required code on your site and validate. It’s as simple as that. You can use this to determind how people find your site and where they are coming from.
14. Optimize your template by showing RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds and comments. You should then submit RSS feed and Blog URL to prominent RSS and Blog directories / search engines. Read RSSTop55 Best Blog Directory and RSS Submission Sites
15. Engage in an ongoing link building campaign.
16. If you have podcasters web sites or video content then submit to Podcast and Vlog (video blogs) directories.
17. Seek feedback on your blog by joining and participating in relevant forums and discussion threads and try to be an active member in the forums you join. Once a member you can create a signature that contains your URL blog address.
18. Research other blogs out there similar to your own and leave comments with your website URL.
19. Write new content regularly and make use of those researched keywords.
20. Monitor comments on your blog and try to respond even if it’s a simple thank you for dropping by. These people are your potential return visitors