LinkedIn Archives - Fairy Blog Mother

Magic Moment: Where does your blog traffic come from?

Posted on Monday 23 July 2012 by Alice • 1 Comment

Click above to ask me a question

It’s always a good idea to know where your blog traffic is coming from, whether your last flurry of social media activity resulted in lots of clicks, or whether that link you placed on a particular website has brought in a few new visitors.

This Magic Moment begins the investigation of this section in Google Analytics that shows how your visitors have accessed your blog. If you click on Traffic Sources > Overview in the left sidebar, you will see this page:

But it is this pie-chart that shows the most interesting information:

Over 70% found my blog through the search engines. This means they had asked a question or used particular keywords that were directed to my blog.

Now I could get quite excited about this, as it does lend the idea as to which search keywords they used, and perhaps I could write some more posts using those keywords to get more traffic. We shall see what the real story is later in another Magic Moment, and how I could encourage these visitors to use my blog further.

Over 11% of traffic comes from referrals. I would like this to become a lot more in the future, so I will investigate which referral sites have been used and how or whether I can explore more effective use of them to increase more focused traffic back to my blog.

17% direct traffic shows that people know my blog’s URL or at least its name, and by typing it in have successfully gained access to my blog.

And finally campaigns – this is interesting, as I have yet to set up any proper campaigns, so those five visits are very intriguing!

So now I will quickly glance at the first 10 referral sites that sent traffic to my blog (click on Traffic Sources > Sources > Referrals to access this page):

I will go into more detail in another Magic Moment, as there is a lot to explore here, but I want to show you the top 10 referral sites I am currently getting:

The top one, t.co, is Twitter. I am presuming this amount of traffic has resulted from the use of the plugin ‘Tweet Old Post’ that automatically sends out past posts at irregular intervals throughout the day, which helps to keep my blog alive for those who are on Twitter at that moment. Ideally I should be investigating into more activity on Twitter, both automated and spontaneous, to generate some more traffic back to my blog.

LinkedIn and Facebook are also doing quite well, and there is certainly much more I could do on these social media platforms to increase traffic (part of my marketing plan that begins in the autumn).

The others trickle in, and unless you want to do a concerted effort in a particular referral site, or through a special tinyurl associated with a social media platform such as bit.ly or su.pr, it’s probably just worth noting which ones provide how many each month, and raise an eyebrow if necessary at any unusual ones that pop up, especially when viewing the extended list.

More demystifying in the next set of Magic Moments to come…

Filed Under: Blogging education, blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs

How many visitors do you get to your blog?

Posted on Tuesday 10 July 2012 by Alice • 1 Comment

Click my logo to ask me a question!

These are permanent questions on every blogger’s mind: how many visitors do I get to my blog? And what kind of visitors are they? Are they really interested in what I have to say, or have they got there by accident?

And how about these questions: how much traffic did my last tweet bring in? Was it worth doing that concerted effort on Facebook? Did posting on that LinkedIn group make any difference?

And then there are these: which keywords stimulate more traffic? Which subject matter gets more attention, and why? Did changing that headline really increase my ratings?

If you have a WordPress.org blog, then ideally you should have installed a Google Analytics plugin. There are many to choose from, and they all should make the process of adding your blog as simple as possible.

Gone are the days when you needed to add the special code in exactly the right place in your website’s header code, and on every page you wanted tracked and recorded. Now all you need is a Google Account, and once you’ve registered your blog or website, just copy the UA-code allocated to it.

Paste this into the plugin’s setting pages, save and wait for your stats to start rolling in. It usually takes about a day to get any results, and longer if they are to become meaningful.

The next set of Magic Moments will show you how to set up Google Analytics on your blog (note this is only for the WordPress.org ones) and what you should be looking out for in the stats. I shall be using my own, which will be very embarrassing, as they aren’t as good as they should be, so I shall be exploring what I need to do to improve my situation at the same time.

Filed Under: blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, marketing methods, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs

Which service would you use to start a blog?

Posted on Tuesday 26 July 2011 by Alice • 0 Comments

Click my logo to ask me a question!

This was a question that was asked on LinkedIn. I took a look and blanched at the number of answers that were already there (which would normally mean my response would be lost in the wilderness), but then having read them I realised the question hadn’t been properly answered.

This is because there isn’t a straight answer to this kind of question. Of course I would recommend WordPress, but there are, of course, two kinds of WordPress, each with their own characteristics and special features.

The questioner needs to work out which one is right for him. Here are three questions he needs to consider:

Are you technically-minded?
Do you have access to a web-developer?
Do you want to use your blog to sell products or make money?

If the answer is yes to the above, then he obviously needs to use WordPress.org. This is an excellent platform to create a monetized blog or a blogsite to act as a CMS website, and the facilities it provides are second to none.

But if you are starting a blog on your own, without external help or a desire to monetize it, purely as somewhere to write or to promote your business more effectively on the web, then I would recommend WordPress.com.

Now I expect all the other blogging experts that answered this question will be be thinking that I’m crazy. Well, not really. You see, it’s usually wise not to run before you can walk. You can use WordPress.com to master the art of blogging properly and effectively before seeking out a web-developer to move onto WordPress.org. And don’t forget it’s very easy to transfer your posts and pages from one to the other, so all is not lost.

Meanwhile, while you are learning the ropes with WordPress.com, you’ll still receive excellent SEO, search engine coverage, access to social media, and an excellent and easy to use environment to learn all about blogs and how they work. Here you can build up your readership and following in safety, because WordPress is doing a lot of the work for you behind the scenes.

Once you’ve moved onto WordPress.org you’re out on your own, which means you’ll have to start working that much harder. But that won’t be a problem, because you will have gained a good grounding beforehand, allowing you to develop and grow, rather than floundering like a non-swimmer diving straight into the deep end.

Filed Under: Blogging help, blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs

Sharing is easy on WordPress.com

Posted on Wednesday 20 July 2011 by Alice • 0 Comments

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In the past it was always a bit of a hassle to sort out how to connect, or feed (the technical term), your blog to your social media profiles. It required creating a RSS URL and going to external application websites to enter your details of your blog, so that your posts would be published simultaneously in your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn account or whatever.

But not any more! Sharing has become so much easier in the new WordPress.com version, as now they do all the processes for you! And they’ve also improved on their sharing buttons as well, methods of encouraging your readers to share your post on their social media profiles, thus increasing the exposure of your posts to a larger audience.

Let’s start with the ability to share your post on your social media profiles. First, go to your Dashboard (usually through YourBlogURL/wp-login.php and entering your username and password):

Settings > Sharing

Look for ‘Settings’ in the left hand sidebar, and click on ‘Sharing’, to go to the Sharing Settings page below:

Here you can see where you can sort out how to publicise your posts and where to regulate which sharing buttons you need.

Let’s set up publicising your posts on Twitter:

Make sure you are already logged into your Twitter account on your computer, or that your computer remembers your Twitter account by default.

Then click on the ‘Connect to Twitter’ link under the Twitter logo:

Here we go through the process of authorising the connection between your WordPress.com account and your Twitter account:

Here you can read all the things this application will allow you to do – pretty impressive, eh?

Click on ‘Authorize App’:

Right, now you’re connected to Twitter, and whenever you publish a post, it will be automatically posted on your Twitter stream. I told you it was easy! Next time after you’ve published, go check the tweet that has been created for you, and know that your post has a better chance of being read by a lot more people than before.

Do the same thing with the other social networking profile apps that you have accounts with – enjoy!

Now to sort out your sharing buttons that will appear after your posts and at the bottom of your pages. Span further down the Sharing Settings page to find the ‘Share Button’ section:

After you’ve decided which social sharing buttons you would like, drag them down into the space below:

There is also the option of dragging them into the collective share button box, where all the services will be stored behind a multi-purpose sharing button, if you want this facility to be more tidy on your blog.

After you’ve finished selecting and dragging your share buttons, it will look like this:

Decide to keep the like button box ticked if you want your readers to ‘like’ your post; you will be notified via email when somebody does!

The next stage allows you to play with the presentation of your buttons. It might be a good idea to have the buttons opening up in a new or different window when clicked on, so change the settings to ‘New Window’ from the drop down menu.

You can also decide where (which posts, pages or index pages) you want your buttons to be displayed, by selecting from the options available from the final drop down menu.

And don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

Now go and have a look at a post you have written to see the effect:

And if you’re not happy, go back to the Share Settings page to change everything to how you want it to be; it’s always easy to rearrange WordPress.com to perfect your blog!

Filed Under: Blogging help, blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs

When is the best time to blog?

Posted on Friday 22 April 2011 by Alice • 1 Comment

Fairy Blog Mother

Everybody has different body clocks, so they choose their own time to write their posts. Some people get their inspiration first thing in the morning, others late at night once they’ve been suitably stimulated by various happenings during the day. Of course you can write your post whenever suits you, only to save it in draft for later editing or, if you’re sure it is ready, schedule it to go out at a more appropriate time.

So when is it a good time to publish? I find this varies quite considerably, according to which particular media I have ‘fed’ my blog post to, so it can be read by the audience that populates it.

It all depends when my readership is more likely to be participating on social media. With Twitter the pace is so fast your post could easily be superseded by other news as soon as it hits the Twitter-stream – unless your followers have set up their own streams which includes you in it. That’s how I keep abreast of the worthwhile Twitters so I can interact with them and follow their blog posts whenever they are published.

You need to work out when is the most favourable time your fellow social networking friends are going to be around to read your posts. Do you catch the early birds, the mid-morning browsers, the lunchtime feeders, the afternoon skivers, or the evening perusers. Ideally you need to schedule your post’s feed so it either catches the most popular time, or multiple entries to get a better chance of being read at another part of the day.

Feeds to other social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn will allow your post to be visible for longer before it is usurped by its successor, and subscription posts that are sent to email inboxes or search engine reader pages will languish there quite happily until they are read.

And a post’s journey is not finished with the subscriber – the practice of sharing posts, through Twitter, social bookmarking sites and natural referral techniques will prolong the life of a post so it can reach another form of readership.

So the answer is to find that ‘optimum’ time that will spark off the chain reaction to send your post on its merry way, as it transverses across the world wide web in pursuit of both new and tried and trusted audiences.

Filed Under: blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs, increasing business visibility, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs, social networking

What is your blogging focus?

Posted on Tuesday 19 April 2011 by Alice • 0 Comments

Fairy Blog Mother

I’ve just got time to add a quick post because I wanted to share with you this comment I got from someone I have been communicating with via LinkedIn to help them with their blog:

“I love your blog so much I just added it to my blogroll on my blog. It really helped me. So many people tried to give me advice, but it was all too complicated. Thanks for putting this stuff in easy to understand language for us newbies. I hope your blog helps others as well.”
Connie

Now can you provide a comment that sums up your objectives for having a blog? I know some of you won’t be blogging for a purpose, solely for the pure pleasure of it, but ideally it is wise to have something to focus on when you are writing your blogs, even only to give your posts structure.

My focus is to help beginner bloggers create, start up, survive and succeed with their blogs. Every time I manage this I feel I have achieved a job well done. Certainly Connie is on the right track – long may it continue.

So what is your blogging focus?

Update from 20 April 2011:

I received another comment from a contented blogger which I would like to share with you:

“Your blog is my absolute favorite. I have learned so much from your helpful advice. I am new to blogging and writing. At first my blog was going to be about my unwritten memoir but as I got into it I have written about past present and future and little things in between. I thank you for your dedication in helping folks like me become better in the blogging world. Thanks a million!”
Jan

This is so gratifying to hear I am helping these beginner bloggers get their blogs off the ground. Keep ‘em coming…

Filed Under: blogs and blogging, non-jargon, Writing tips

I’ve written a post – now what?

Posted on Friday 8 April 2011 by Alice • 1 Comment

Fairy Blog Mother

Well done for writing a post – after all, that’s what your blog is for. Now you’ve got to let people know so they can see and read it. This can either be done manually or through automated systems.

Here is a list of what can be done to spread the exposure of your post:

Set up a RSS feed: RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, which means automating a procedure for something to happen simultaneously in several places at once!

This means your subscribers will receive your latest post in their email inboxes, or view the latest feed in their search engine reader pages, immediately without you having to send it to them, or they remembering to visit your blog to find out your latest post.

Update your status: You can also use RSS to automatically feed your posts into Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and any other social media you’ve joined up with.

After you’ve published, your posts will automatically appear in your profiles via the special applications available, either with the headline, first paragraph and connecting link, or in Twitter as the headline accompanied with a tinyurl linking back to your post.

Allow readers to share: You can add applications to your blog to encourage people to share your post once they’ve read it, for example, there are the three boxes at the top of this post to encourage my readers to retweet in Twitter or share via Facebook and LinkedIn.

At the bottom of the post there is another button to encourage my more technical audience to share and save in any of the myriad of social bookmarking sites, which will boost the post’s exposure considerably.

Contribute your content: Sometimes it’s worth spending a bit of time manually promoting your post, especially if it’s performed with a personal touch, as that can set it apart from automated feeds. Start slowly with one or two locations, and build it up gradually.

If you’ve joined any relevant LinkedIn Groups, contribute to the discussion by posing a provactive question or statement, backed up with a link to your latest post, and do the same for LinkedIn Answers if you post qualifies and contributes to your answer.

Join in on other discussion groups and forums, either with helpful and relevant responses or by starting another thread with a link to your post. Comment on other blogs within your niche or industry, as that will automatically link back to your blog, as well as drawing attention to yourself, and some blogs will automatically show the last post you’ve written too.

Update your email signature: If you send out a lot of emails, you could be missing an excellent publicity slot if you don’t include your blog’s URL in your signature. You could even type in the latest post’s permalink for direct access.

That will do as a start. Automation will make your life easier, but don’t ignore manual contributions which can differentiate your post from others, and ensure its relevance to the environment it is posted into.

Filed Under: blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs, online marketing, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs, social networking

Would Victorians understand blogging?

Posted on Friday 10 September 2010 by Alice • 2 Comments

Fairy Blog Mother

Blogging is definitely a 21st century phenomenon. So why am I thinking of it in 19th century terms?

Quite some time ago I posted a question on LinkedIn asking how would a Victorian gentleman view blogging. The responses were as varied as they were interesting, some even replying as if they were Victorian gentlemen themselves! Apart from the florid language and lengthy time taken to describe things, it was a good insight to break down blogging into its most basic format, to view it without all the bells and whistles that adorn this platform that could also confuse the true reason why to blog.

The internet was viewed as the telegraph, and therefore a blog is somewhere to publish your news through the telegraph system to reach a much wider gathering than through letter alone. Of course, sending a letter to The Times would certainly reach many readers, and the Victorians were compulsive letter writers (as well as reading them), but a blog could resemble an inclusive Gentleman’s Club through which you could submit your thoughts and musings, ideas and innovations, gripes and grumbles, retorts and responses, to both a private and public audience.

This opportunity to broadcast yourself as a source of authority, where readers will take your opinions as fact, would be much less expensive than writing and printing a series of pamphlets. These might be in danger of not reaching their intended audience, be wasted in their distribution, and be limited in their extent of circulation, and certainly could not enable their recipients to respond immediately through the same medium.

Your letters would reach their recipients much quicker than the usual method of postage, without the initial cost of paper, envelope and a stamp. And if you wanted to change your mind or add more to your message, this could be possible even after distribution. Replies may even be instantaneous, resulting in an immediate response of your own, thus adding to the conversation which could elaborate further on the subject matter.

And it would be worth while reading other gentlemen’s letters on their similar methods of communication, just to keep in the know, monitor what your competitors are doing, and steal a march on other exciting projects by acting first. Every time you reply to these letters, your signature will allow other readers of these missives to find out who you are and read what you have written, thus extending your expertise in the subject and your presence in the community.

And there is also somewhere where you can leave your visiting card for interested persons to access, find out more about you, and even take the opportunity to visit you, either at your Club or in person. You would only have to distribute one visiting card, as it would be able to be seen by a great many more persons than leaving it on the table in a Club or another social meeting place in the hope that it might get noticed.

What other elements of a Victorian business man’s life might be improved if he had this wonderful innovation they call a ‘blog’?

Filed Under: blogs and blogging, marketing methods

6 ways to find inspiration for your blog posts

Posted on Monday 12 July 2010 by Alice • 0 Comments

Fairy Blog Mother

Many people ask this question – how do you find material to write about in your blog?

Well, once you start blogging, you need to change your mind-set. You need to be able to click onto blogging mode (my family hates it when I do) and you need to gradually train your mind to be always on the look out for possible blogging fodder or to become susceptible to recognising suitable post material wherever you go, what you read, what reacts with you or whatever you bump into.

There’s nothing more irritating than forgetting a brilliant idea, so I like to be able to scribble down the gist of this new concept which pops into my head so that I remember it later and can develop it into a blog post – just that I don’t always get the time to regurgitate or finally write it up!

So where can you find stuff to write about?

1. Look in your in- and out-boxes in your email system; you may be fending off questions at work all the time, and if you think you’ve managed to write a successful or relevant reply to a particular query, why not rewrite it as a post so that more people can benefit from your wisdom?

2. Subscribe to a myriad of blogs within your industry; reading what other people write about in similar subjected blogs as you should not be a daunting experience, you should derive inspiration and write about the same things in your own style, taking advantage in the fact that that’s what people are writing about at the moment – but remember, plagiarism is not advised under any circumstances.

3. Set up Google Alerts to receive prompts from other blog; this is another way to how you accomplish the second point, and certainly you’ll find out daily the main projects and topics that are successfully stimulating the search engines. Being aware of hot news and commenting on it yourself will not only draw attention to you, but show you are riding the wave of ‘now’.

4. Be vigilant on social networking sites; this is another way of finding out what’s happening, and I use LinkedIn to generate new content by answering Questions on my particular subjects and responding to discussions on the Groups I follow (this is how I got the idea for this post). Of course there are lots of other sites specifically created to watch and recommend other blogs, such as Digg and StumbleUpon, where there will be lots of new material to read, learn, respond to and share with others.

5. Researching which keywords are ‘a la mode’ right now; for Search Engine Optimisation to be truly effective, you need to find out the most effective and popular keywords or keyphrases that the search engines are responding to at this moment. Leave it any later and they will become yesterday’s news, and you will have missed the boat. Once you’ve found your likely keyword, base your blog post about it for the most effective results, but don’t saturate your post with more than 10% or you will turn off both spiders and human readers.

6. Go out for a nice walk with the dog to let the creative juices flow; there is always something to be said for a change of scene. Quite a lot of stuff outside your place of work will stimulate new ideas, and sleeping on a problem and allowing your subconscious to work overnight will result in new material in the morning. I don’t expect you go to out and start talking to trees and flowers, but even the process of speaking your ideas into a dictaphone or scribbling down all your ideas quickly in a notebook may be enough to generate the perfect post you are looking for.

Filed Under: blogs and blogging, Writing tips

10 things a blogging mentoring service should provide

Posted on Tuesday 6 July 2010 by Alice • 2 Comments

Fairy Blog Mother

I keep an eye on many LinkedIn Groups, especially those about blogging, and one post caught my eye. It was from someone who wanted to know about forming a blogging mentoring service, and being the altruistic kind of person I am, I gave him my 10 opinions of what a blogging mentoring service should provide:

1. You need to be aware of business’s blogging needs; this includes explaining how blogging can benefit a business, small or large, to increase its online visibility and its audience on the net;

2. You need to research into why people have blogs (or don’t have blogs); blogs are created for a myriad of uses, business and personal, and therefore have very different styles – alternatively there may be many potential bloggers who need encouragement to start one;

3. You need to understand what blogs are used for, and whether they are used properly; similarly to above, blogs fall under many categories, but you need to understand their purposes to advise on the best practices;

4. You need to explain blogs need to be regularly updated, and to find out whether help is required with writing posts; blogs aren’t really blogs without consistent new material, so ideas for post subjects and writing styles are usually welcome;

5. You need to find out whether bloggers fully understand SEO and explain how keywords can help their blogs; this subject, once properly aired, stimulate a vast change in a blog’s performance towards its success;

6. You need to check whether they have they fully optimised sidebars; so many blogs have neglected sidebars and don’t use their widgets adequately, mainly because they don’t understand or appreciate their functions;

7. You need to advise on which plugins they need; for WordPress.org blogs these applications help enhance the blog’s performance to further it towards popularity and success;

8. You need to talk about integrating their blog’s design with their website or corporate image; using the myriad of themes available, some of which can be adapted or redesigned to match an existing style or personality through specialised blog designers (the Fairy Blog Mother is one);

9. You need to show how to get RSS and see if is it being used to its full extent; once acquired, the online world is opened up to automation of post publishing, feeding to social media and other related websites, and visibly interactive headline links;

10. You need to explain how to integrate blogs with social media; related to above, your blog should be the hub of your social networking strategy, fully optimised to interact with your audience, and present and potential customers.

I’m sure there are many more things I need to include (and if you know them, tell me in the comment box below). But in the meantime these 10 will have to do.

Fairy Blog Mother aims to offer much of this advice in this blog, and eventually through her book which she plans to publish in the future. She benefits from people asking her questions, especially specific things you would like to know about blogging and particularly from blogging beginners who may have a selection of questions they are too embarrassed to ask elsewhere.

I plan to change my style in future posts to a more advisory nature, in concise, focused subjects, and if the subject is large, to break it down into smaller posts for easier understanding. The Fairy Blog Mother was formed to explain blogging in easy to understand, visual e-courses, using non-jargon and everyday language, step-by-step with no assumptions that the reader understands technical blogging requirements. She doesn’t mean to be condescending, just informative and educational.

So, what questions about blogging do you have?

Filed Under: blogs and blogging, design makes a difference, Free Wordpress blogs, increasing business visibility, online marketing, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs, social networking

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