⇒ Tips and Tricks

What do you know?
Get this: write what you know. It's that simple. What does your online store sell? Write about those products and activities related to them. Otherwise, you're losing customers and returning blog readers - this diminishes traffic, which is like chasing people out of your store - cutting away at your image. The internet is all word of mouth. Granted, Google and other search engines are some of those mouths, but plenty of the sites you frequent have been recommended by a friend. You have to think, why come to my site? If you can't answer that question, you're in all sorts of trouble.

Honing in on Your Strong Points
I don't build boats, wouldn't have a clue on how to begin. So, if you ever see a blog post about the top 10 boat building tips posted by me, get away - far away. I have no authority and won't give you any sound advice. More than likely, listening to my top 10 boat building tips will get you hurt. And I'm not out to hurt anyone. What you will find me posting about is writing, how implementing it effectively is a powerful tool.

Working with What You Have
My practice of creating example stores has reared its ugly head again. Today we're going to visit Mort's Running Shop. Mort wants to start blogging (smart decision for any website) but doesn't know where to begin. The first thing to ask is, "What can I bring to the table?" Specifically, what do you know that no one else does? Maybe a customer has shared a life changing story with you, a moment of grand inspiration: write about it. In Mort's case, he isn't a doctor, but he does run marathons. He could write about training for the marathon, participating with reader comments, and then blogging about the actual event. More than likely, he's encouraged other readers to run one as well. They're going to need equipment, might as well buy them from Mort. Another option he has is creating video post. Using Wordpress or Blogger, uploading a video has never been easier. The audience can watch his training, allowing them to better empathize with him.

Adding analytics to your blog can tell you things like:

• Which referring sites send you the best traffic
• Which visitors are most likely to subscribe to your email list
• Which keywords have the highest engagement
• Which articles have the lowest bounce rate
• Which articles monetize best using AdSense
• and much more.

For more information about how web analytics can be useful for bloggers, check out Avinash Kaushik's post on useful goals for blogs.