As a blogger you’re not only the content creator, but you’re the customer service, sales associate, project manager, social media maven, producer, and data analyst. Hearing that last one makes me cringe a little because numbers are not my fave. I’ve never liked numbers but unfortunately they’re a pretty big part of being a blogger and running a business so you have to educate yourself to the point where you can talk about them.
Not only do you want to educate yourself on all aspects of the biz, but analyzing your blog data is majorly beneficial to growing your brand/blog. Data isn’t just a bunch of random numbers, they’re correlating numbers to what attracts new readers and what your current readers like and dislike without asking them.
While data is great and everything, you shouldn’t rely solely on it. You need data in combination with intuition, experience, and human psychology. That is a recipe to find out what your readers want without asking.
So now that you know what skills you need here’s the different data you need to look at: Google analytics, Facebook insights, Instagram insights, and YouTube analytics. Pinterest, Snapchat, and Twitter have their own analytics tools but for right now we’re going to focus on the other guys. At first, it may seem like a lot to keep up with but once you do the initial overhaul it’s pretty easy to maintain, which says a lot coming from me!
After that, all you’ll need to do is check your progress once a month. I use a simple Excel spreadsheet to keep me organized so I can see what my readers want more of at a glance. I also try to take note of any upticks in traffic or growth spurts due to IG features, reposts on Facebook, link backs, etc. For example, one month I shared this blog post about the Instagram algorithm in a Facebook group and it got a huge bump in traffic so I make a little note of that so my data isn’t skewed. This part takes a little more work and attention to detail, but like anything, the more you do it, the more you’re aware of it, and the more it becomes second nature to you.
Let’s start with the basics…
Why you need to analyze your blog
It’s always important to understand the why of anything right? You don’t just want to do something because someone told you to. So why should you analyze your blog and find out what your readers want without asking? For one thing it saves time. Instead of polling your audience (which I still think you should do) you can do a quick check of your analytics to see what topic got a lot of hits versus waiting for the results of your poll to come rolling in.
Analyzing your blog does two things: it shows where you’re thriving and where you could use some work. This is crucial to the future of your business. From there you’ll want to assess why certain content does better than others and see if you notice any patterns.
Analyzation is your guiding force to where your blog should go. You won’t get anywhere if you blindly blog without any direction. Your blog needs a direction and that direction comes from your consumer but if you don’t feel comfortable asking or you don’t think your audience is big enough to ask, that’s when you let the data do the talking.
I will say, you definitely want to survey your audience as often as possible to get an understanding directly from them of what they want. Analyzing your blog is part data part common sense. It’s data related because well, you’re collecting data from your blog and applying it to your future strategy. And common sense is a factor in analyzing your blog because there are some things data can’t measure, like emotion.
Analyzing your blog also shows brands you’re on top of your stuff, especially if you include the data in your media kit. This proves you know your audience inside and out and you’re aware of KPIs, ROIs, metrics, and conversion rates, all of which are things that will set you apart in the industry.
Analyzing your blog step by step
First you want to track all your progress on a monthly basis, at least, if you’re just starting, weekly wouldn’t be a bad idea. This can vary from how many followers you have on each platform to your monthly blog traffic to your most successful blog posts to your specific Instagram insights (i.e. story viewers, most liked picture, most commented picture, etc.). How specific or in depth you get is up to you. Honestly, at this point in the game I just do a general overview like follower count and top performing posts. I don’t get too into which picture on IG had the most comments or likes (I did in the beginning!) but now I’m able to kind of just take a mental note.
You then want to evaluate where your content performs best. Instagram? YouTube? Snapchat? Then within each platform you want to measure exactly where you’re most successful. And then within those parameters, moving forward, you can create content around those topics because you already know it’s something your audience wants.
So for example on Instagram you’ll keep track of your likes and comments. On YouTube maybe you’ll look at your views and engagement (thumbs up, comments, shares). And on Snapchat you’ll look at viewers and screenshots. You can use a similar method for Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and any other platform you’re on. Then once you’ve acquired that info you want to lay it all out, preferably in a spreadsheet, and see if there are any patterns.
Does your beauty content on YouTube get more love than your style content on Instagram? Does your travel content get more love than your beauty content? Do your selfies perform better than your flatlays? There are so many other questions to ask and so many layers to peel back.
The initial analysis process takes some time. But if you’re serious about blogging as a business, analytics is 100% necessary. You want to analyze your blog until you know your audience inside and out, until you can predict what they’ll say and do with your eyes closed.
What to do when you know what your readers want
This next part may seem obvious to some and more challenging to others but once you’ve fully analyzed your blog, you want more, if not all, of your content to be similar to your highest performing content. So if that means spending more time researching a certain topic, accessorizing your outfits more (because the accessorized outfit shots perform better than non-accessorized), or perfecting your video editing, you better do it.
Your blog analysis will make your life 100 times easier once it’s complete. You won’t have to survey your audience or beg for them to tell you what they want to see because your data already tells you all that. Now you just have to create the content. And once you create more of what people want, your audience will keep coming back for more and even anticipate what you have coming next. They’ll open up and maybe even make requests which is even better then asking them!
When you know what your readers want, you should also know your top blog posts, Instagram pictures, email campaigns, and YouTube videos. And you should know the exact days and times they perform best which is when you should continue to post. I also encourage running tests too. Posting at the same time of day may not always be the most successful so it’s important to switch it up every once in a while.
Here’s the thing: crappy content is crappy content so if you’re not creating content that your readers want, it doesn’t matter what day or time you post, it still won’t perform well because, no one wants to consume it!
But if you’re reading this, you’re a determined, hardworking hustler so I know you’ll get it right… it just might take you a few times and that’s ok.
Do you analyze your blog or pay attention to your stats? Comment Y or N below!
xx
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