Google Analytics and supplying demand

[marisa]

I've only had Google analytics on my blog for a week or so, but it's giving me very valuable information.

Most of my traffic comes from search engines, but they look and immediately leave; the bounce rate is very high. The pages that get the most hits are about decorating. Does that mean that I should write more about decorating in order to bring in more traffic? Or does that even matter?

[fek&fuzz]

What is the goal of your blog? Who is your audience? If people finding you want to read about style, and you want them to read your blog, then post more about style. Add photos of your style.

From your first few posts, it seems like you are just providing links to other places, with a bit of commentary, but not much. More like "I like this cool stuff go check it out" And when they go check it out they leave your blog. You need to give them a reason to stay.

You might try more pictures of yourself or other real people in the clothes you are talking about. The generic photos don't add much, since people can see those on the store website, and people usually want to know what the clothes look like on a real person, not a model.

I think you might need to do some work on figuring out your audience (or desired audience) and the purpose of your blog, and that will help tailor your posts.

And using the Analytics to help tailor your posts can be really useful. I have a blog for my business, and when I can't think of anything to post I just go to my analytics page and write a post using what people have googled to find me.

[marisa]

Thanks for your constructive comments! And no, I haven't quite figured out who my audience is and what the purpose is for my blog. I just didn't feel like blah blahing about the personal details of my very (boring) life.

I used to write lengthier articles, but my inspiration has run a bit dry these days and I'm just trying to keep it updated. I do plan on including more real life photos as soon as my camera is fixed or I get a new one.

Really, I just want to write something useful. If someone is benefited by some little tidbit of info in the blog, I'm happy.

[MyTwoAs]

I have probably six different sites, on a variety of topics, and the average length on site is usually only a few minutes max. When people come to your site from a search engine they usually just read what they land on and then off they go - whether they're clicking through your site or something else.

What I do, which may annoy some readers, is have external links open up in a new window. Once I started doing that I noticed that the time people spend on my site went up.

Another thing that keeps people on your site is linking to other pages within your site. So if you're writing about one type of decorating, find a way to link to other decorating articles on your site. You can either do this intext or add a line at the bottom "For more decorating ideas, read my entries: Decorating on a Budget and Decorating Kids' Rooms" - or something like that.