1. Check your analytics
In November 2020 I took the beginners course offered by Google at Analytics Academy. Here's my certificate:
Since then I've been checking my analytics more often.
2. Use your stats to plan for the new year
Where is your traffic coming from?
I love how international my site has become. Here's where my traffic has come from this year (top 10 countries in order):
- United States (44.88%)
- United Kingdom (8.82%)
- India (7.67%)
- Pakistan (3.48%)
- Canada (3.33%)
- Australia (1.91%)
- France (1.83%)
- Germany (1.65%)
- Italy (1.26%)
- Philippines (1.20%)
Something else I noticed from looking at my stats is the varied age range of my readers. I love that my content appeals to such a mixture of people.
Which are your most popular blog posts?
I was surprised to find out that my top 3 most popular blog posts this year where in fact all from 2018. They are all also very different from one another.
My most popular posts that I created in 2020 where:
As a book blogger I'm obviously particularly interested to see which of my book reviews got the most traffic.
Most popular book reviews from this year in terms of pageviews were:
It's interesting that these books are all from different genres and have absolutely nothing in common with each other. This actually makes me really happy as I have very varied reading tastes and so it's great to see that my reviews are popular no matter what genre they are.
How can you improve your bounce rate and user flow?
This is something I've been working on this year and I have seen an improvement, however, according to my stats for the most part my user flow drops off after the 3rd interaction. I'd like to improve my user flow even more in 2021 and so will be continuing to update my internal links within my blog posts.
My current bounce rate is 1.95% though so I'm still happy with the result. The length of session duration has increased considerably this year too averaging between 2-3 minutes.
If you want to know more about the industry averages for bounce rates check out this article What's A Good Bounce Rate by ezoic.
Is your blog mobile friendly?
I use a responsive template for my site so I'm good to go on any device.
What worked?
My informative posts brought in a lot of traffic this year. I'm really pleased that these types of posts are going down so well with visitors to my site as I love helping others. I want to be a valuable resource for people interested in books, blogging and marketing so this shows that I'm on the right path.
Notable stats for 2020:
30 DA
237K views
71 posts
3. Plan your content calendar for January
Map out the blog posts you intend to create for publishing to your blog in January so you can start the new year with a bang. You can of course, plan further months too if you wish.
I've already started to set up and schedule blog posts for January. So far I've got quite a good mixture of content as I'll be participating in some book tours, have more books I've read that I need to review, and of course, my 2021 challenges.
Take into consideration information like "which days get the most traffic" when scheduling posts for publication.
Week days users visit consistently throughout the day mainly between 8am and 8pm. Monday is my highest traffic day.
Also consider how you promote your blog posts and use social media to build your blog brand. Think about what changes you could make, new sites you could try out, etc...
12 comments
You've achieved so much Jo. I intend to revisit some of your blog posts as I do find them really informative and useful. Happy New Year!
ReplyDeleteWelcome back to the book blogging community Tasha. We've missed you. Looking forward to checking out your book reviews again 😊
DeleteLooks like you made out pretty well with your challenges. I've just emailed myself your blog post ideas for book bloggers link because I think I could use that to create more content in 2021. You're always so helpful.
ReplyDeleteYeah I'm not unpleased with how my challenges went but I know I could have done better. Maybe 2021 will be the year I finally complete all my challenge goals 🤞
DeleteI love that you emailed yourself my post about blog post ideas for book bloggers.
FYI I already have a lot of content lined up for this year that I think you'll like 😉
Congrats - you continually impress me with your smooth skills and accomplishments
ReplyDeleteThanks DJ. I aim to never stop learning, and try to pass on all the stuff I learn.
DeleteYou accomplished a lot for the month. Congrats on your certifcation.
ReplyDeleteThanks Nadene. I'm really pleased with my Fundamentals of Digital Marketing certificate. The course covered a lot of topics. Hoping to add more qualifications in 2021.
DeleteAt the start of the first lockdown here I started a Google marketing course but never completed it. In all honesty I forgot about it until you mentioned your course. Great work on passing and you look like you had a fab month.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Google offer quite a lot of courses online now. Which one were you doing? I'm going to do some more this year too.
DeleteVery inspiring still! A very interesting post.
ReplyDeleteThanks Karen. I'm glad you liked the post. I hope that by sharing my own progress with the challenges I do I help inspire others. It also motivates me to keep on track each month.
Delete