Technology, business and change
Google traffic + Your brand Rocks
If you don’t already know, I love analyzing statistics and that’s why Google Analytics is my best friend. Whether or not you like stats, it should also be your best friend because it helps you make smart decisions. If you don’t know where your traffic is coming from and you don’t know what that traffic is doing on your website, you’re never going to be able to grow. Why? Because you don’t have a single clue if the 500$/month ad you placed on some website is paying off! What if the FREE traffic you’re getting from Facebook or twitter for example converts more? That’s where Google Analytics comes into play, whether you like stats or not.
Direct Traffic
I love direct traffic because it makes me feel good! Direct traffic is someone who actually remembered your domain name and took the time to type it manually in the address bar to visit your site. If you reach my website on a consistent basis by typing the name manually in your browser, I love you. Direct traffic is about 30% of my blog traffic which I think is huge! Let’s have a look if you guys are good traffic 
If it’s green, it’s good. For people not familiar with Google Analytics, everything that’s green or red is the particular statistic compared to the site’s average. There’s no surprise here as direct traffic actually represents people willing to spend time on the site. The only bad statistics is the number of new visitors but I don’t see this as bad: you guys are coming back, that’s good!
Referring Traffic
Referring traffic doesn’t seem to be that good. Referring traffic is basically traffic coming from social networks or other blogs and a lot of that is because of comments I write on so many blogs. So, let’s have a look at how you guys can’t provide me with good traffic! Just kidding.
OK, so that sucks. I mean, the only good news is that it’s bringing me new visitors but I already knew that! When I look at the stats, these are pretty good stats to me but it’s below the website’s average! It doesn’t mean you guys should stop sending me love…!
Google Traffic
Now let’s have a look if the Google traffic loves me!
I am so impressed! The Google traffic ain’t that good on some other website I run so it really is a surprise to see how good in this niche the search traffic seems to be. Every visitor spent almost ten minutes of their precious time on my blog, visiting an average of 4 pages!
Build your personal brand
You see that referring traffic is good but not as good as direct traffic and Google traffic. What does that mean? Well, it means that we all have to continue building our brand. I don’t care if people subscribe to my feed, I much prefer to see them type my name directly in the address bar or in Google: it means people actually care! That direct traffic converts in word of mouth, because these visitors know who you are and can remember your website’s name.
As for the Google traffic I don’t know. It looks to be the killer, but it might go down in the future when the site gets a lot more traffic. I prefer to think people like what they read and decide to stick around.
Now it’s not because referring traffic isn’t the best traffic source that we have to stop commenting on blogs! You know why? Yes, that personal brand thing and the loop starts all over again. In the end, traffic is simple: it all comes down to establishing your brand out there.
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I like the kind of traffic you have.Your bounce rate is so much better than mine. I actually got 80% bounce rate. This is because of my seo posts but at least they still give me earnings from adsense.
Husseins last blog post..Testimonial Generator
Dead on the money. This is exactly what I’m going for. Over a month into blogging and I’ve not checked any statistics. I’m just watching my blog and brand grow naturally.
Clog Moneys last blog post..Five reasons I both love and hate making money online.
well, i am still in the initial state of blogging (almost 3 months). Although statistics help a lot but they are useful only after you have attained a basic stage of marketing and socializing on the web. Only after that you switch over to statistics to make it much better.
Rituraj Vyass last blog post..Peugeot RC HYmotion4 – Parisian Concept
I have google anayltics hooked up to my site atm, but I’m still growing so haven’t really been checking it much at all. Hopefully it will become a great way of finding what traffic is converting and what isnt!
Dans last blog post..Blog Action Day…yesterday
@Hussein: 80% is really high but it tends to happen on posts that get a lot of Google traffic, which I presume is the case if you make some AdSense money out of them. Google Analytics is pretty good to break it down. You might have a 80% bounce rate with search engines, but a 40% bounce rate with referring traffic and direct traffic which is pretty good…What’s your main source of traffic?
@ClogMoney: Hehe that’s good, at least your brand and blog are growing! Analytics will really help you to know your traffic.
@Rituraj: Yes and no. I think you can get a lot out of statistics at any stage of blogging, you only need a little traffic
@Dan: Yep, I suggest you take a look at it a little more seriously, there’s some pretty interesting stuff in there.
yeah, you’re right. It’s nice to know that readers actually type in your url in the address bar. But I think, it will take some time to build your reputation that high and your domain name must be easy to remember. Most of internet users have short term memory loss and rely too much on google.
willbills last blog post..How to Explain Money Blogging to Your Grandma
@willbill: I agree, it all takes time and patience. Anyway, that’s what blogging is all about, right!
Yeah, I have to get some google traffic. I still haven’t fixed my permalinks, so that is a problem. In addition, I haven’t been checking which keywords are bringing me traffic to capitalize on that.
I am focusing on shaping, molding, and creating my brand. I am almost ready. Came up with one more section for my site and I will post more frequently. Seems to make a difference.
Thanks for sharing your traffic. It looks good to me. Also, I have never even paid attention to the red and green numbers. LOL! I will now!
Freddies last blog post..Blog Action Day 08: Poverty
Haha Google Analytics is all about red and green!
Seriously, I wrote a while ago about how it’s important not to give a damn about Google because what really matter is establishing your brand and that’s what you seem to do. It’s the right path really, Google will follow eventually…
Thats a great bounce rate and time spent ( 9.18 min ) there…shows that your content rocks
ZKs last blog post..Awesome Thanksgiving Contest Giveaways
Thanks ZK, I try to always produce rocking content. It’s not always the case but I think it’s not bad
<y stats are improving slowly as I get spread myself out more. I know eventually I’ll have a really strong site
Bruno Augers last blog post..An Overview of Web 2.0
Nice bounce rates indeed. Mine is usually around 70%. Recent SU spike brought it down to 50% but I suspect it’s bug – Woopra was showing plenty of visitors from there loading same landing page two times.
And overall I am pretty tired looking at my traffic to confirm that it does suck today as well.
As long as I see it building up overtime (you’ve seen my last report) I don’t… try to not really care how much I got today.
I am eyeing subscriber count more often, perceived by some as one of my blog stronger points.
Impressive! I’ve never used anything but Statcounter and happy with it.
Dennis Edells last blog post..7 Tips for Choosing a Business Name
I’m an Analytics junkie too, I go through all my blog stats every day to see what’s going on and what I need to change (if anything).
It’s also important because you might have a huge spike of traffic the previous day from a high profile blog, and you can use that as a new ‘landing page’ to convert those visitors into returning readers more easily.
Alexs last blog post..Traveling in Rome
@Rarst: Yes I’m proud of that bounce rate. 70% isn’t that bad but definitely could be better. A 50-60% is possible to reach on most blogs, but it requires a lot of tweaking and incentives to browse the blog. You are right when you say it’s weird SU brought it down because SU users don’t visit more than one page most of the time…Anyway it’s good if it brought it down
Your subscriber count is definitely your strong point and you could use that to your advantage (sell ads and stuff…)
@Dennis: I use both!
Analytics isn’t real time, you have to wait a day for the reports, but it is SO complete. A lot more information than with SC.
@Alex: Totally true. Didn’t talk about making your most popular articles/pages good landing pages to advertise products. Good point you raised there.
@Bruno: I’m sure you will get a strong site. Working hard always pays off! (well, most of the time!)
I’ve never been able to think up what SC could be missing, being quite complete themselves…what more does GA give?
Dennis Edells last blog post..7 Tips for Choosing a Business Name
You can go much more deeper with GA. For example, you could take a referring URL and get the stats for that specific URL like bounce rate, time on website and everything. SC is limited to 500 entries in your log, GA is not limited to anything. GA puts very nice charts of your traffic & demographic, you can even get the stats by states and stuff like that, it’s just awesome! Just try it and see if you like it, you can still keep SC while you try GA so it’s not a problem!
Google Analytics is the shiznit Frogstr! have you ever seen ClickTale.com? It’s a pretty crazy “analyzer”. Check it out. If you’re an “anlalyzer fiend”, you’ll like it.
I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m going to soon.
Cheers!
Jay
SuiteJs last blog post..How Justin Brooke Tried To Stop Me From Flipping Websites
What I learned from article is that quality of site is determined by the time a person spend on your site. If he stays longer,then it means you are doing a great job and he finds your site interesting.
If he visits just for seconds,then it means you have to work hard on your site.
Great Post.I got clear picture of google analytics
@SuiteJ: I have no clue what ClickTale.com is but if you say it looks pretty cool, I’ll check it out
@Fran: Yes I agree, content will determine how much time a person spend on your site. You can also tweak some pages with some incentives for the user to visit more pages.
Average time in the site is terrible :S
Personally, I prefer going to a blogger’s site over the RSS feed. To me, the RSS feed is like sitting outside an amphitheater during a concert. You can hear the music, but you are missing large parts of the live music experience.
Cris Cohens last blog post..A Joe by Any Other Name
@Downloadic: haha I know!
@Cris: Really like that quote mate…Nice one!
This is a good way to compare different kind of traffic. Director at probably is better than other kinds of traffic because that means the person was looking specifically for your site. That can only be a good thing.
Armen Shirvanians last blog post..Quality Builds On Itself
Thanks for sharing your traffic. Also, I have never even think about the red and green numbers. from now i will check it
Proxys last blog post..chavdude.com
Am using Google analytic but never wonder until that little green and red make such different ,pointing to your article today i,ve been read 3 article of yours and i see you have expertise on this field, and make good content so people will like it .Just because it is worth to (read = good quality) no wonder the rate of your blog from drect traffic have nice rate.luv the post…
Hidayahs last blog post..Sterling background check
Hey that is a pretty decent bounce rate on your Google traffic! Seeing these people are searching something specific and your keyword seems to be satisfying their needs! Nice work on that one!
I see your new visitors are down I’m guessing that’s part of the reason you reached out to blogengage our social network! You will find some really great people over at the site and they will comment too! I meet so many great people and if you interact with the community you wills ee strong results and new visits will be up!
I’m not sure how much traffic you get but you page visits are a little low! Something to think about maybe as time passes. Try to improve on the problem.. why aren’t people reading more then 2.6 pages of a fully packed awesome blog!
Sure this will change I’m about to hit an average of 6 page views after this comment lol
bbrian017s last blog post..Top 7 Pointless Facts That Are Nice To Know
Google traffic + Your brand Rocks…
Why? Because you don’t have a single clue if the 500$/month ad you placed on some website is paying off!…
Hey Brian, welcome to the blog!
Yep I reached blog engage to get some more readers that will then get addicted…you know that’s the trick! hehe
My number of pages per visit is low you are totally right and sometimes I wonder how can people spend some decent time on the site and only see two pages! Anyway, this is something I’ll be working on in the coming weeks by maybe adding some related posts at the end of each article.
Thanks for submitting the article on blogengage I really appreciate it mate! Are you on Twitter?
i have one questions, that there is an potion in google analytical that take my site with country wide. I want to know that what is that. Is google will take my site with my preferance i have chosen?
@Eric Johnson: Welcome to the blog buddy and I appreciate you take the time to comment! I’m not sure I understand your question though…Can you be a bit more specific?
Hey Ben sorry I didn’t know you replied to my comment!
Yes I’m on twitter and if I’m correct I think we added each other
Nice to visit again now it’s time to loo around
Cheers,
brian
bbrian017s last blog post..Is it time to upgrade your hosting account?
Good post dude, what i know time on your site matters a lot, any ways you solve a lot of confusions.
Google analytic is what you have to integrate into your website to check the statistics so you make necessary changes in it and get more potential traffic through google and other search engines.
sometimes I get discouraged looking at may analytical other times I am pleasantly surprised.
Thanks for the article, Ben. So informative. I've been following your blog. You owe me one..*winks*..lol
Google anlaytics is a must as it help very well in assessment of the steps you do even by on-page or off-page factors
and from the keywords that you get from analytics you may make articles with these words
in addition to you know from wich region these people are coming so you can target you visitors and this is very important for advertising or if your site is like a store
in addition to my openion that the organic search is the main source of traffic so you must in care with it
at final: don't let Google Analytics go away