Does this post make my blog look bigger? My fling with Google Analytics.

 

(This is the first of a two-part installment about growing my blog-readership platform.  I have been informed by those in the know that I will lose readers if my blogs are too long.  So now you have to come back again on Wednesday.  My apologies in advance.)

I have a confession. 

I’ve been trying to (ahem) expand my blog readership.

Before you say anything, let me explain!  It’s not you—it’s me!  You do everything right.  I’m the awful one here.  Every week I blather on about some nonsense or the other, and you show up and you read it fer chrissakes.  And you (sob) even comment.  You all make me feel so special.  It should be enough.

But then I started getting these emails about building my social media platform.  I know. I know.  I shouldn’t have fallen for it.  But I’m weak!  Weak--I tell you!  I was swept away by the promise of more followers, and more readers!  Reading!  All the writerly websites say building your social media platform is essential on the path to becoming a writer.  So I started up Facebook, again.  I Tweet my posts like the best of birds.  I visit, read and comment on others blogs, and they always DO come back to return the favor.  But I’ve always wondered, how do Bloggers manage when they have a huge following?  Do they still visit their visitor's sites in reciprocation?  How do they get anything else done?

And then along came Google Analytics.  I’ve always felt my Google Blogger Stats to be unreliable, and being the curious type, I experimented a little on the side. (But I didn’t inhale.) Google Analytics is supposed to tell me how many readers really DO visit my website, aside from my faithful dozen who consistently comment.  Google Analytics show my readers demographics and behavior, something horrible called a “drop-off rate” and a bunch of other crazy statistics about the actions of these blog-readers I have never met.  It lured me in with promises of success.  It told me what I wanted to hear.  I became somewhat of an addict.  One day, after reading I had 87 visits to my blog over the course of a day, I noticed a button called “Engagement”, and when I clicked on it, I found the average duration of over HALF of the visits was… under ten seconds!  Seriously? 

What was that sound? 

Oh—nothing.  Just my gynormous ego hitting the floor and shattering into a thousand bits and pieces.

Surely I’m not pouring my life’s blood into this realtionship for a mere ten seconds! I considered stopping this blogging nonsense altogether.  But I ain’t Irish for nothing.   Someone tells me “No” and I do my Grandma Josephine O’Donovan proud and come out fighting!

 

I decided to delve even further into building my blog platform, broadening my horizons and checking out some guest blogging opportunities.  I thought it would be a sort of experiment, nothing too far-fetched, you know.  And conveniently, one of the bloggers I follow had posted on several of these guest blogging opportunities.  I decided to take the plunge!  My findings?

 

You will have to wait until Wednesday to find out. I’m hope the suspense won’t kill you.  After all—you are my faithful twelve disciples.  Besides, if I go long you won’t be able to read this blog in three minutes, which is the average rate of visits for most of my readership. 

But in the meantime, do tell:   Are you concerned about building your blog-readership or do you just say “To hell with it!” How do you approach gaining readership?  Is it just time in the trenches, hosting contests, commenting, and building relationships?  I would love to hear how you all have done it, and as always, thanks for reading.

~Just Jill

ROW80 Check in:

I have followed through and submitted an article to an online magazine, and have my “Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul” article in the final edit.  My plan of enter “Dreamwalker” in a contest to light a fire under my editing butt has fallen flat since I did not make it into the contest.  I did however get an honorable mention.  (Always a bridesmaid…) I shall continue editing without the lure of readership for now.

As Helen (one of my fabulous CPs) says, “Onward and upward into the fog!”