People don’t pay enough attention to analytics stats. I have been told that I care about my stats to much, but I believe this is not true. Before I go any further I want to make a distinction. There is a difference between using your stats and checking stats every five minutes to see what is happening with them. The first can help your website the second is just a time waster.

I use my stats to help build traffic. I look at the sources that are bringing me traffic and the quality of traffic. To me at this stage your job is not a webmaster but a statistical analyst.

You have to look through the data and identify key points. There are usually a few key things I look for such as bounce rate (if they stick on your site), time on site (how long they are on your site for), percent new visits (how many of them are new), and pageviews per visitor. These base stats help me identify if the source is good for the site. Although a source may pour in tons of unique visitors you want quality.

One thing I do is print out my reports and go through them by hand. Doing so allows me to see a hard copy and then write on it my goals for the traffic sources. Not only will this allow me to physically circle sources but also give me a template to work off and directionality for the next little while of work.

Once I find a source that I need to optimize for, I get to work on doing so. This may be just contacting the webmaster or buying a banner. Honestly, a fair part of the blogs health is a numbers game. The better the number, the better your blog will look to advertisers and consequently the more you will make.

Once you go through this process once, wait a little while then rinse and repeat. By continuing to do so you will see your traffic rise and also the quality of traffic rise. It is all about taking things in smaller goals and achieving this and setting stats goals helps you do this.

A quick note to remember is things don’t happen over night, stuff takes time and you should never forget that. All good things come in time. Work at it and you will see results.

Update from yesterday: Forest and How to DIY won the free text links from yesterdays post. Please email me your link at admin@moneybites.com to claim your links.