Are you trying to decide what to blog about? So am I.
Well, not at this moment because I finally made a decision. Once I make a decision about my next blog series, I am pretty good for awhile. But then when the things I want to blog about all get written and published on my blog, I’m back to figuring out what to blog about again.
I’m a solopreneur service-based business. The majority of my time is spent doing work for my clients to pay my bills. I don’t know about you, but the thought of spending endless hours just trying to figure out what to blog about isn’t really an option. I need to hit the ground running. And to do that, the first place I turn to is Google Analytics.
Why Use Google Analytics to Figure Out What to Blog About
Some of you might be really familiar with Google Analytics but most don’t think of Google Analytics as a tool to help you decide what to blog about or what services to offer. However, that’s one of the things for which Google Analytics can be an awesome resource.
So let’s back up just a moment and get into Google Analytics and then we’ll start talking about how to use Google Analytics to help you figure out what to blog about next. Google Analytics, in its most basic form, which is the way I use it, is free. It is provided by Google. To use Google Analytics you need to put Google Analytics tracking code on your website. Part 2 of this series will show you how to install Google Analytics.
The reason Google Analytics is so great to help you figure out what to blog about is because you can see what Google thinks about your content, how people find your site, and what they do once they get there. Think of it in the form of a physical store. When a person walks into a store, you can observe what they are interested in by simply watching what they gravitate to. Then the next person comes in and you can watch them as well, and so on. So even if the people don’t buy, you can start to figure out what is interesting to people and what isn’t. When you know what is interesting to people, you can offer more of that or give it more of a presence in your store and in your storefront window and in your advertising efforts. If you talk to the people who come into your store, you can find out how they heard about you or why they walked into your store. But you can’t do this sort of human observation and conversation with visitors to your site unless you have a little help, which is where Google Analytics comes to the rescue.
Google Analytics is the perfect tool to find out:
- What pages people visit the most on your site or blog.
- What pages people spend the most time on.
- What pages people start on the most (because it isn’t always your home page). Unlike a physical storefront where people only enter into your store through your doors, people can enter your website from any page on your site; so if you have 15 pages on your blog or site, you have 15 doors through which people can enter into your blog or site.
- What words people used in Google Search to find your site.
- What words your blog showed up for but didn’t get clicks for.
- What words your site did get clicks for and how many times.
- What your blog’s average position in the search engines are for each of the search terms people are using (whether you get clicks or not for those words).
- What people are searching for when they are on your site.
Once you know what causes Google to display your blog in search results and what terms get you the most clicks, you now have the knowledge to write more content around those topics. And, eventually, when you really dominate the search results for one topic, you can build in more topics while continuing to write about your main topic.
Deciding what to blog about should come from a place of service, and if you can see what Google and people already think your site or blog is valuable for, you can build on that and give tons of valuable information around that topic. This will make your blog better, your knowledge stronger, and build an audience for your blog that views you as an expert.
Once you are viewed as an expert, you can sell your products and services easier to your audience because they have already become acquainted with your knowledge and they know they can trust you and they can see the value in working with you.
Have you installed Google Analytics on your site? If not, here’s a walk through of how to do it.
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