It’s hard to get your blog to the top, especially if you’re blogging about “making money online” or something similar.
But the key to it is to keep blogging and never quit, no matter how slight the odds are that you will succeed with your efforts. How do you keep going? You need an inspiration. And what is the best blogging inspiration out there?
Unexpectedly, it’s your traffic stats.
“Whaaaatt??”
First, let me explain. Right now you may be thinking that your stats only make you feel down about yourself and your blog, but I strongly disagree – you’re looking at it the wrong way, the un-optimistic way. Remember, blogging, no matter what niche, is all about setting goals and having optimism and ambition. So what is the right way of looking at your stats? If you’re blog is growing, it should be obvious. Comparing your blog traffic from this month to another month in the past for example, is good inspiration. When I see my traffic increasing, I am always motivated to work-work-work.
Reading Your Stats
By stats, I mean any script or plugin that tracks how many visitors you get and is capable of comparing traffic from one period of time to another. If you know anything about traffic analysis, then you know that Google Analytics is the best choice. Since it’s free, there’s no reason not to get started today. For the rest of this post, I’m going to have my writing geared to bloggers who are using Google Analytics, but even if you aren’t, there should be a way to do something similar using your own tracker, so just keep reading.
A handy feature of Google Analytics is that you can see how your site has grown over the last 30 days compared to the 30 days before it. In other words, it compares the current month to the last using a percentage. This is all from the account view. Yup, you don’t even have to be in your Dashboard to be inspired by your statistics. I’ll call this metric the “Account Overlook”. But if you want a more detailed and more motivational view, you’ll have dive into your Dashboard. Your account overlook only compares how many visits you are getting, and not the most important piece of data, the amount of actual people coming to your website, or visitors. But from your dashboard you can view and compare to the past all of the main statistics available in Google Analytics, including visits, pageviews, pages/visit, bounce rate, average time on site, new visits, and visitors. Combined these stats will encourage you to keep blogging and keep growing.
Conclusion
Although you probably didn’t realize it until now, your increasing traffic stats are the best inspiration for working and writing as a blogger. Google Analytics is just one example of how you can use your stats to achieve this effect. After all, every webmaster loves to see cold-hard proof that their website is growing, and statistics are it.
Thanks for reading! I hope you got a lot from this article, and I hope it will encourage you to use your traffic tracker in a whole new way. Be sure to retweet and share! 
Image credit: Butterflies
Article by Karan Singhal
Karan Singhal is a well-known professional search engine and social media optimizer. He founded the Trafficke SEO Consulting Firm. He also shares more advice at the Trafficke Blog
11
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: PR_Luv
June 23, 2010 at 4:59 pm
I absolutely agree with this.
Your first point I think was very important – it’s about setting goals. Part of having a blog, or a business…is having a plan. And part of any business plan is setting goals for yourself and your ‘business/blog’ – and then constantly working to meet or exceed them.
Hand-in-hand with the above is being in a niche that you’re passionate about, then working every day isn’t an issue… You’re doing what you love, and that’s hardly work!
Thanks for the great article! Keep it up and keep in touch! All the best!
Caitlyn recently posted..Google/Android apps expose private data
I totally agree that statistics are the ultimate motivation to keep on blogging. As my Alexa rank improves every week, this tells me that my site is going forward even though I wouldn’t yet really be making money off it yet.
Yes, gradually growing volumes shown in stats is a great confidence booster. And it’s also useful to look at the search terms that are bringing the viewers to your site.
When you see that you are ranking well for one keyword, you can combine it with one or more others in subsequent posts. Sometimes you start to rank for related long tail keyword searches, bringing in more targeted traffic.
Thanks for your thoughts, Matt. So your statistics can ever help you find great keywords to focus on during your SEO campaign.
Karan Singhal recently posted..Writing Linkable Content: Add Humor
Hi Karen,
This is so true! It always shocks me when I come across a blogger who has no means of tracking their stats on their website… I think this is definitely something which should be emphasised a lot more… Nice
Tola recently posted..Dimasoft – Another Curtain Call
stats force you to improve your blog more and more
himanshu recently posted..Migrating from BlogSpot to Wordpress without losing traffic
agree with you completely…. i am a huge fan of blog’s stats and check them everyday to see various changes….they inspire me a lot that’s for sure
Tushar recently posted..How to Select the Right Blog Platform?
Hi Karan,
I also like to use the tiny improvements which I see as motivation. It shows that I’m headed in the right direction and it always feels good to know that you’re getting there.
Thanks for sharing your inspiration,
Ryan
Ryan recently posted..How To Ramp Up Your Drive As A Blogger
I like to do the same for my website design. One little change has such a big impact.
Karan Singhal recently posted..Writing Linkable Content: Add Humor
That’s quite true. The more visits and comments I have, the more I feel inspired to keep on blogging!
Guilherme Vaz recently posted..How to create a custom Facebook Profile and Page URL
Hi Karan,
You are absolutely right.
Checking traffic regularly is an important/vital part of any Internet Marketer.
It also serves as a great piece of motivator for further growth and further goals.
After a days hard work, it is pleasing to see your traffic results.
‘Clicky’ (getclicky.com) was mentioned in a forum as an alternative to Google Analytics, though I am using google analytics myself.
Nabeel
{ 2 trackbacks }