Mention Google or Paris Hilton in Your Post Title: Lessons From Blog Tracking Week One

I recently began tracking this blog in WebTrends. TypePad does offer tracking & analytics, but the feature's a bit anemic. (Anil says they're working on it....) WebTrends is, as they say in our industry, a "robust solution."

It's been a little over a week since I started this project, and it's really interesting! First off, as you'd imagine, traffic spikes after a ping. If I don't post, traffic drops to a mere trickle. No shock there, right? Blogs are all about timeliness.

Here's the big surprise, though. Last week, I wrote a post about Google's earnings. That day, right around the time of that post, traffic nearly tripled. TRIPLED! A little more research showed that most of the traffic was direct (feeds from NewsGator or other desktop feed apps?) and that it was going to the main page of the blog, rather than the specific post (so...not feeds. News Alerts for the term "Google?").

I just, coincidentally (really!), posted something else on Google this morning. We'll see if the results are the same.

Similarly, a fellow DigitalGrit-ter runs a popular pet enthusiast blog, Petville. She (shrewdly!) ran a post recently about Paris Hilton's pets --- and saw her traffic skyrocket. So smart really; the post was totally relevant, reporting about the socialite's new pet ferret and how she doesn't actually take care of her own pets. (Do you think they'd still be alive if she did?) But by using one of the hottest celeb names this minute, she got a number one ranking on Google's blog search. I love people who think like marketers. 

Really, it all comes back to our recent post on Best Practices in Blogging for SEO...Rule #3: Post regularly with keyword rich copy. (Don’t forget your editorial calendar to keep you on track). It's something I've resolved to be better about. And now that I've seen how effective this tactic can be...I'll work a little harder at it!

Comments

[EricB]

Excellent points - especially about keyword rich copy. Let me know if you have any questions about using WebTrends for your analysis - I use it for my blog too.

BTW, WebTrends was the keyword that brought me here :-)

-Eric