Blogs come in all shapes and sizes but it’s not what they look like that determines their popularity (for the most part), it’s traffic.
Getting people to actually read your blog is the first struggle but having a lot of internal traffic is just as important a struggle, if not more so.
One of the easiest ways to keep your visitors clicking is to provide a number of alternative ways to view the content that creates an understandable “stream” of experience.
Let’s take a look at a recent user that I tracked wandering one of my blogs and I’ll share with you some of my thoughts:
A number of things you’ll want to take note of:
- The original referrer is Search.Twitter.com for the keyword “wordpress”. What you’ll notice is that the people who are there because of a keyword that you strongly “own” they will click through your website like it’s giving them candy.
- Total time spent, as calculated, is nearly 17 full minutes long. That’s a lifetime in the blogosphere. That’s good. That means this person is reading the content. But, more importantly, they’ve found easy-to-use controls and links that keep giving them good content.
- They came and saw the Ipseity WordPress Theme first, didn’t like it and headed back to the homepage proper. Lesson here: Make sure it’s easy to get back to the “home.”
- They then proceeded to click through the pagination up to 6 times. Pagination is awesome. Make sure you have it on your website.
- They then deviated and started jumping into other “WordPress” themes. This is because they obviously “found” a way to target their experience: Related Posts and Categories are huge. Make sure they are everywhere and people can find them.
- The ended up downloading something. That’s awesome. It means they have some artifact from your blog to take with them and do something with. In this case it was a WordPress Theme… but what is it for you?
Ultimately, this type of user is gold to your blog, and it’s all because of your navigational structure, good content, and simplicity of the user experience.
Time to ask yourselves the hard question: Is your blog generating lots of internal traffic?
Guy Walker says
Hey, how did you get the tweet this bird at the top of your post?
Random Question…. I'm loving churchcrunch. keep up the great work
human3rror says
Custom design baby! just a little css here and there… did you click the bird? it works!
brianfalexander says
I use Google for stats, but hey it works just about the same. Thanks for providing reasonable tips John. I will try to pass some of this along to my church folks.
human3rror says
Sure thing brian! share the love dude.
;). what church do you goto?
brianfalexander says
Yea, well my church back home isn't a tech savvy congregation, but i'll do what I can. I go different places while I'm at school in Greenville, SC though and enjoy seeing different huge use of technology. Two different worship experiences for sure. It's fun though.
Jim says
i'm nervous, how often is big-brother tracking?
Phillip Gibb says
big-brother tracks everything, u think the web cam is off?