jasonyormark.com » Wordpress

What I’ve Learned About Blogging Based On A Year’s Worth Of Data

admin — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:35:41 +0000

I didn’t really get serious about blogging until the past year, and even then, I haven’t written as much as I would like. Like many bloggers, I’ve gone in and out of writing, and that doesn’t help with maintaining a consistent flow of traffic to your blog. At the end of the day, driving eyeballs to my blog isn’t really the ultimate goal, writing useful and appreciated content is. But I like anyone loves to see people visit. So I decided to dive deep into the analytics of my blog to get a true understanding of what has worked, what hasn’t, and pulling the curtain so that you can hopefully find some insights that you can find useful in your own blogging endeavors.

Let’s start with the following tables. I’ve embedded them as images since WordPress doesn’t play too nice with real tables (please, anyone with any insights on this one, do share!). My analysis and thoughts follow.

These were the top 10 visited blog articles I wrote in the past year. 3 of these were lists (no surprise there). Most achieved a Postrank of higher then 6, and 9 out of the 10 articles dealt with social media. For those not familiar, Postrank is a nifty little WordPress plugin that provides some analysis into the social engagement factor of the content you create. For more details on how they reach these measurements, see here.

In this table we have the top 10 sources of traffic including time spent on the site and bounce rate. Based on these figures, Linked In is where I’m attracted my strongest audience followed closely by Twitter. There’s differentiating opinion on what a good bounce rate is, but overall, mine is not where I would like it to be which means I most likely need to focus more on a specific topic.

Here’s the top 20 keywords that were used to find my site once again including time spent on the site from those searches, and the correlating bounce rates.

Based on the data above, here is what I’ve learned:

1. Use Concise & To The Point Titles – All 10 of my top blog posts in the past year have titles that were to the point. Bottom line, make sure your readers know what you are linking to, and it’s more likely they’ll visit.

2. Stick To Writing What You Know – The bottom line is anytime I strayed away from blog articles about topics I had a relatively deep experience with, my traffic suffered. 9 of my top 10 blog articles are social media related. It can be tempting to use your blog to rant about things, but if you are interested in building an audience, focus on a specific topic.

3. Find An Angle & Run With It – One of the most compelling things I found in my research, was around the topic of WordPress Social Media Plugins. Based on the keyword research, it’s clear that the most impactful blogging I did was around this topic. My bounce rates plummeted on these blog articles down to a healthy average around 50%, and these visitors spent the most time on my site. It’s clear based on this data, that I’m providing content that resonates with those that find me through these keywords. I should be focusing on this area more in my writing. When you find your niche, don’t stop there, be as specific as you can. Find ways to take those niches, and make them even more specific. You’ll find a nice little audience waiting.

4. Be Timely – In my Olive Garden Facebook post, I wrote immediately following stumbling across the scammy offering in my news feed. I garnered a quick audience on this post, and it was one of the most shared articles on my site. It struck a cord with people, and I was the first (and really only) person to dedicate a blog post to it. Of course I added a social media spin to it to make it more relevant to my blog, but at the end of the day, I drove quite a few new people to my blog and I would imagine a few new readers in the process. This article alone still brings people to my site as shown in the keyword data above. Of course this is not the most relevant audience as also seen in the time spent and bounce rates, but still contributes to overall traffic numbers.

5. Share Your Ah-Ha Moments – Back when the iPhone only supported one Exchange account, I was frustrated with not being able to use Exchange with both my work and Gmail accounts. I had to dig deep to find a solution, and being frustrated with their not being an easier way to solve, I felt compelled to share my findings in a blog post. As the data shows, I get a good % of my traffic just from this one blog post. Now the smart thing for me would be to combine this approach with my bread and butter topic of WordPress Social Media plugins. My guess is those would be very successful blog posts.

There’s obviously more to be learned here, but this is a start for me to try and improve my blogging approach. Numbers are never the be all end all, so only use them to compliment other methods in measuring what works for your blog, but ensure you have free tools like Google Analytics and Post Rank set up so that you can quickly and easily get a pulse of your audience.

5 Steps To A Professional Grade Blog On A Budget

admin — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 20:31:17 +0000

While there are quite a few “free” options when it comes to starting a blog, sometimes you want a little more then what they can offer, especially if you are wanting to get serious about building a professional grade blog. The great news is that these days, even a great looking, unique blog doesn’t have to come with a hefty price tag.

WordPress has changed the game and opened up the door giving the potential for anyone to create and publish great content and possibly earn a few bucks in the process. I’ve been toying around with WordPress for years, and the formula for launching a professional grade blog is not as difficult or expensive as you would think. Here are the 5 steps you can take today and have your professional grade blog up and running and ready to rock today.

1. Get yourself a shared hosting account. Having access to your own web hosting is very empowering as it gives you not only the ability to launch your own custom blog, but the power to launch practically as many other blogs/websites you would ever want. Sure, maybe your world doesn’t involve the idea of multiple blogs or websites today, but once you enter this world, you’d be surprised what you can come up with. Once you have access to unlimited hosting, all those “ideas” you’ve had running around in your head start to seem more realistic. I have used Bluehost for the past 5 years and stand behind them 100%. Very inexpensive ($6.95/month), 99.9% uptime (it’s true), and all the bells and whistles you would ever need. Plus they have an extremely easy control panel that makes installing anything idiot proof.

2. Secure your domain name. There are hundreds of places you can go to secure a domain name. I personally use Go Daddy. It’s cheap, dependable, and easy to use to manage multiple domain names. If you haven’t figured out what domain name you want, you might want to take advantage of some great research tools to figure it out. Bustaname.com is a favorite of mine to throw names at quickly and easily to see if they are available. If you are considering purchasing aftermarket, Sedo.com and Snapnames.com are my favs for that. Once you have your domain name, you’ll need to change the nameservers. Steps for this vary depending on your choice of hosting and domain registrar.

3. Install WordPress. If you chose Bluehost, or a comparable hosting company, this is as easy as launching their Simple Scripts control panel and choosing your domain name to install WordPress on. It’s a one button install, and once this is complete, you will be given the log in info to access your fresh new blog. WordPress is dead easy to use, but if you need some help, be sure to take a walk through on their tutorials to get familiarized with the basics.

4. Find a WordPress template. This is one of my favorite steps in the process. Sure you could hire a professional designer and drop $2000 on a unique design, but there are literally thousands of quality professional grade WordPress themes out there. I’ve spent hundreds of hours looking through and staying on top of the best of the best. My personal favorite resources are the following list of gems:

Woo Themes – Some of the highest quality WordPress themes you will find period.
Elegant Themes – Again, amazing designs, and the absolute craziest deal of all. $19.99/year for access to all of the themes. Crazy good deal.
Themeforest.net – A theme marketplace where hundreds of designers create themes. If you can’t find something here, you’re the pickiest of the picky.

Once you come across your must have design, simply purchase, download, and then upload through your WordPress control panel under Appearance-Themes-Install Themes. You then have the option of uploading into your account. Once uploaded, you can then select that theme and you will be good to go.

5. Install must have plug ins. The beauty of the WordPress platform is the extensibility. Plug-ins are a great way to accomplish practically anything on your blog, and again there are thousands to choose from. Some of my must have recommendations include the following:

All In One SEO Pack – Make it crazy easy to ensure your blog posts are SEO friendly.
Facebook Share & Tweetmeme Button – Ensure your readers can share your content on the two most important social media platforms quickly and easily.
Google Analytics – It’s critical to know your site’s stats. This plugin makes it easy to integrate your Google Analytics code.
Sexy Bookmarks – My personal fav plugin to manage all of the sharing capabilities for your readers. This compliments the Facebook and Tweetmeme buttons usually found at the top of your blog posts while these are found at the end.

There are a few more steps along the way, but for the most part, this is your roadmap to getting started. Of course you can have the best blog in the world, but without great content, it’s all a waste. Pick your niche and run with it. Everyone has their “thing”. Stick to this and over time, you’ll find your audience.

As always, if you ever need help, or have a question, I’m more then happy to assist. Just leave a comment, or contact me directly.

Good Luck!

Mobilize Your WordPress Blog!

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:45:17 +0000

I could spew all the stats about mobile browser usage, but the cold hard facts are that more and more people are using their mobile devices to browse the web. It’s just a matter of time before it eclipses normal computer usage.

So is your WordPress blog mobilized? Mine really wasn’t. So I took an hour or so using some incredible free tools and like magic, I’m good to go. It’s quite easy and all you need to do is take the following steps.

1. If you are using a hosted blog on WordPress.com, you’re already set. If for some reason you want to deactivate the new mobile themes, instructions are located here. For those using a self hosted blog, you can download the WPtouch plugin here, and follow the same process you do for any plugin install. Once installed, there are a multitude of options to choose from to display your theme as you wish.

2. Once installed, you may want to consider creating a custom icon for your new mobile theme that will also act as a potential home screen button for users who especially like your blog and are willing to devote some screen real estate. Check out this incredibly slick and easy to use iPhone icon and favicon maker here. Once created, you can upload this icon in the control panel for WPtouch, and when iPhone users add you to their homepage, you custom button will appear.

Both free applications are extremely impressive, especially considering they are both free. Easy to use, and within 30 minutes, you can have your hosted or self-hosted WordPress blog completely mobile friendly.

My 9 Favorite WordPress Social Media Plugins

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:46:38 +0000

The WordPress platform never ceases to amaze me. It’s by far one of the greatest pieces of software ever built, and to think that it is free is the icing on the cake. What really makes the platform as successful as it is, are the thousands of themes and plugins that the WordPress community contributes. These add ons turn what essentially is a blogging platform, into just about any type of site you want from community to content management systems to storefronts. It truly is amazing.

Over the years I’ve found some very useful plugins, and lately there have been some great developments with social media plugins as well. Below are my 9 favorite WordPress social media plugins. If you are running a hosted WordPress blog you should definitely check these out.

1. Sexy Bookmarks – I had been using Sociable and Add To Any for awhile, but stumbled across the Sexy Bookmarks plugin and just think this one looks better. A unique design, simple to use, and…well sexy.

2. Tweetmeme – Certainly you’ve seen plenty of blogs with retweet buttons on the top left of postings. Chances are they are using the Tweetmeme plugin. Easy to use, does what it’s supposed to do. Retweet.com has recently launched offering a similar service, but I like that Tweetmeme has established themselves already with a proven service.

3. Fbshare.me – This just recently launched and mimics the functionality of Tweetmeme but for Facebook. The facts are Twitter and Facebook are the kings of social media so having both prominently on your blog posts increases the chances that your readers will use them and spread the love.

4. Disqus Comment System – The Disqus plugin transforms your WordPress comments into a true social media friendly experience. The plugin integrates social media mentions in addition to your blog comments which helps consolidate all the “chatter” about your blog articles into one place. Comments load in real time, and users have multiple options regarding how to log in using any of there social media profiles. Very cool stuff. Oh, and did I mention it’s free?

5. Twitter Tools – The Twitter Tools plugin simply helps you be more efficient by automatically tweeting your blog posts once you publish. It also allows you to pull your tweets into your blog posts and offers a ton of customization features to fit your needs.

6. WP Greet Box – Anytime you can give your readers the impression of a custom or personalized experience, that’s a good thing. The WP Greet Box plugin uses Ajax to automatically identify how your users found your blog articles, and displays the appropriate referrer message at the top welcoming them and suggesting they share accordingly.

7. Fotobook -While Flickr still offers a more robust photo hosting experience, the reality is, most people are consolidating their sharing, and post the majority of their photos on Facebook. This nifty plugin allows you to easily “import” your Facebook photos and albums into your blog seamlessly.

8. Smart YouTube – This plugin is all about making it quicker and easier for you to embed YouTube videos into your blog posts. I’m personally more of a fan of Vimeo (check out a plugin here for them), but the fact is, most of the free world is using You Tube. Regardless, these plugins speed things up considerably.

9. Yet Another Related Posts – While this plugin may not directly be categorized as a “social media” plugin, it’s a must have. Social Media is all about sharing information, and when you get users to your blog, you should do all you can to share relevant information to them. This plugin automatically identifies similar articles in your blog, and displays them as related posts. It’s a great way to keep your readers engaged on your site and to drive down bounce rates.

Those are my favs. What are yours?