Update:11:50
Get ready for the Influence and Stats session! It starts in 10 min!!
12:00- Clare from FunkyAngel (moderator)
This session is about who comes to your blog and why they come to your blog. Introductions. Eve from Google Analytics. Belinda from LadyGeek. Justine from Mumsnet.
12:05- Eve from Google Analytics (nice to see another American Accent!!)
Eve has started a brief overview of Google Analytics. What do you want to know about your visitors? Where do they come from? Where are the traffic sources coming from? Do you advertise? Does anyone have e-commerce on their sites?
When you log into Google Analytics you get a nice dashboard. Under visitors there is a map overlay feature. This shows what countries your visitors are coming from. You can actually zoom to see exactly what cities your visitors are coming from. You can see how loyal your visitors are. You can see how long people stay on your site.
Under Traffic sources- You can see what search engines are leading to your site. Keywords are the terms that lead readers to your site. You can compare your stats from one month to another.
Under Content- You can see what your top pages are. For each individual page you can see some stats that may be relivant to you post. Such as how long your readers stay on each post. (AKA- if you have written a really long post but then they stay for only a few moments, maybe you need to change your content or it wasn't really that interesting)
Adsense- You can see how much money you are making if you use Adsense on your site. You can see which pages are driving your Adsense revenue.
12:17- Belinda from LadyGeek
Competition is not your biggest vulnerability, it is invisibility. You need to make your "brand" tangible. This gives you a way to make your blog "real" to others. Using multi-media can help you blog move from blog to business to brand. You can use survey monkey to do research about your blog audience. Experiment and see what sticks! Learn what you audience wants.
12:20- Justine CEO Mumsnet
Don't become obsessed with Google Analytics. Be careful, but use it because it is brilliant.
The Mumsnet story. How to grow by listening. "Mumsnet is like having a million big sisters who never get fed up with you pestering them."-Red Magazine.
There are over 20 millions monthly page views and grew via word of mouth. You need to get your audience to be your word of mouth. They have never spent a penny on advertising. On Mumsnet you find other like minded mums.
Your average Mumsnetter- are quite smart. The more intelligent the crowd the better the advise. When asking readers the number one reason to visit was advise; second reason was entertainment. Sometimes you need humor to get through the ordeal of being a parent.
What makes Mumsnet sucessful? It is useful. The mumsnet users find the site very addictive.
If you want to change, you want to run it by your readers. See if they want a change. Listen to you users preference. Ask your audience what they want.
Mumsnet -"One of the great British Institutions"-Gordon Brown
12:30 Q&A Top Points
Learn from negative feedback.
How useful do you think bounce rate is?
If there are repeat vistiors then ignore then ignore the bounce rate. New ones, use it. You can separate it to see new vs. return.
If you read in a reader will it show it on Google Analytics?
No, you won't see them in your Analytics stats.
What is the difference between Mumsnet and NetMums?
Mumsnet goes up to teens. NetMums is a bit difference. Mumsnet started as a discussion boards. The demographics are a bit different than NetMums.
As a blogger, to get more readers, should I be using everything? Ads, twitter- How do you expand your influence?
Justine-Unfortunately there is no quick answer. You can't streak naked and run down the road. You need to use all the outlets you have available. You need to be prepared to put in a lot of hard work. Hard work will translate into word or mouth. Or you could try to get sued (JOKE-laughter).
Balinda- If you are starved for time, PICK ONE channel for communication. (She chose twitter). Have something interesting to say. Don't just promote yourself all the time. Carry one a conversation. Don't let your twitter stream become a narssistic exercise.
Claire-Don't forget YOUTUBE! Use free PR sites. Think of ways that you would like to promote yourself. Change your tweets promoting your post each time. Use bit.ly to shorten your links.
Eve- Have good content. Do the legwork to promote. Don't pay someone to promote you. Link you pages to each other. Such as new post to older posts.
Does the panel have a preference between Blogger, Wordpress, etc. Is there a book "Bloggers for Dummies???"
Justine- prefers WordPress. You can buy templates to suit your needs. Go for it try it! Make loads of mistakes (in order to learn)
If you blog once a week will SEO not work for me?
Eve- There is nothing wrong with blogging once a week at all. Obviously I can't talk about the algorithms that Analytics uses *moan of disappointment from audience*
Just to clarify on wordpress....should you use self hosting or wordpress.com?
Self Host (general consensus of panel) (aside from Eve who is pro Blogger obvs ;) )
