I’m the biggest fan of “own your content”. Whenever I evaluate different technologies or solutions when it comes to content creation, I always ask myself: will I own that data? When I say “own my content”, I mean on my own server or at least I make sure I will be able to leave the service with the data I created.

It is so easy to spend half a day on twitter and Facebook building a brand and retweeting your friends, but these are services that could shut down tomorrow with all your data. Of course you would keep the brand you worked so hard to build and all your connections, but without a solid home (website) and a central place to access the content that made you so special, you’re screwed.

Don’t take me wrong here, social networks are useful tools for sure, but they are only tools: they shouldn’t replace your home (your website). Your brand has to go beyond the tools you use because the platforms can be replaced anytime.

What do you think?

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.

How to create a Gravatar?

I think the main reason people don’t use it is because they don’t know how to have one! But in fact, to have your brand next to every comment you post on blogs like that is pretty simple:

Gravatar comment example

Just head to gravatar.com and create an account! There, you will be able to assiciate an email address with an image you will upload. That is how a blog will be able to retrieve your gravatar image when you comment: with your email address. Of course, you can associate many email addresses with many images, so if you have multiple blogs, simply add an email address to your account with a new image and you’re done!

How will this help me establish my brand?

If you don’t comment on blogs, this won’t help you establish your brand. But, if you write 1,000 thousands comments every month and you have a nice little image next to your comments every time with your website logo or something like that, your brand will be well known across the blogosphere. For instance, my goal with putting the frogstr frog all over the place is that I want people to think: “What’s that damn blue frog I see all over the place?” and then visit the blog and get addicted to it

It takes five minutes

Even if you don’t really comment a lot, the process takes five minutes and it’s really a nice addition to your comments, so create one!

Blog owners like it

Blog owners usually like people to have a Gravatar because it adds a little something to the comments section: personality.

Conclusion, just create a Gravatar.