Guest Blogging

Backlinks, analytics, and site changes 

Guest blogging can get you some links to your own blog. But what does Google think about those links? So before I go into writing about which blogs you should make a guest appearance on, and/or whether or not you should host guest bloggers on your own blog lets watch this short video about what Google thinks about guest blogging and what they take into account when deciding whether or not to place any value on those links. Is it worth your time in the long run?

Did you find that helpful? I have written a few guest blogs. I've yet to see a couple of recent ones published, but it may be too soon since they were written less than a month ago. Others I've written have been received well and shared by the blogs guests about 75 times on average. I try to guest blog on well know blogs only. Blogs like Hubpages.com, Examiner.com, The Huffington post etc.

If someone reads my blog hosted by another blog site, follows up with me on my own blog and backlinks to it, GREAT! That is if they're understanding of backlinking is accurate.

If they have a blog that gets hundreds of visitors a day and is well read, good for me and good for them. However, if their blog only gets a couple of reads a day, is not written well, or covers uninteresting subjects, that's not good for me or them. Depending on what I'm targeting with my SEO efforts determines how my operating results read at the end of the month (EOM) results.

Mid-year 2015 jimisound.com was getting around 65,000 hits per month. That's not many but it's not so bad considering the site was redesigned, rewritten and reborn only just over a year ago. This means the site is a popular read, the visitors become enthralled and stay.

Then they come back another time and pick up where they left off. If there was only one takeaway at that site, it would be that it captivates and retains its readers. Although my recent activities and experiments lost some base readers. How do I know this? Analytic's! We'll get into how to use analytics to maneuver your content too.

Lately, with the addition of new blogs that are focused on blogging, marketing, and Word Press, my base readers have become somewhat disoriented and confused.

They're not certain yet if they are witnessing a major shift in the direction and content of the site or just a new segment on the site. It is important to watch your readers reactions and re-evaluate decisions that result in a shift in your returning visitor metric. Watch your analytics dashboard closely always, but particularly when you make any kind of change or addition to format, content, ads or design.

Many blog readers start to develop a sense of investment and ownership to a blog site, so you absolutely should respect them and keep them apprised of your intentions.

Eventually, you want your readers to develop a propensity to follow you the person as much as they do your blogs. Concerning the recent additions to jimisound.com some have left, and some new ones have come aboard. I hate losing base readers, that's the worse feeling ever.

Fortunately for that particular site, they tend to come back over time to look in on it!

I've figured out why they left by then and fixed the problem so they'll notice next time they stop to see what's new. That's because the sites always got something new happening and it's been around for a little while now. It is a niche site and encompasses several different niches so using social media is very important for a site like that. But as always you have to figure out which social media networks have the personas for the individual niches or all of the three of the niches on the site.

In business, the general rule of entrepreneurship is to do one thing well and stick with that!

Your brand is easier established, people remember you easier, your product stands out and is automatically associated with you, and you know who your customers are. And they know who you are! That's not my personality. I feel limited, corralled by that. But I must respect the rule. I like the rule the more you know, the more has been given to you, and the more is expected of you. If I know well how to fish and know well how to shoot, why should I be limited to sharing only fishing?

Why if a person needs a fishing pole and a shooting lesson should they have to go to two different places if they can get it both in one place. Especially if they're related? But I don't make the rules

These are the decisions an entrepreneur must make and a blogger must make those same decisions.

With every decision, any little change you make to your blogs content, context or the site itself, in general, will have a visible effect on your operating metrics.

That is good and it can be bad. If you've got some experience in every aspect of blogging its good, you have full control and no damage control. For beginning bloggers, they usually don't know what the heck happened if suddenly there's no more traffic for instance.

They almost always panic with fear there's some kind of problem with their writing, site design etc. It just means they haven't developed a full understanding of the metrics in their analytical data. You can use analytics to make decisions about content and context in your blog. We'll discuss those things in a future blog as well.

That's why it's important to make changes slowly and document what kind of change you made to your blog or website. So you can undo changes for the right reasons.

As your knowledge about the business of blogging improves so will your understanding of Google's and other analytics providers. I love the analytics provided by my jimisound.com hosting company; IPower. Their analytics are in spreadsheet and chart form, very basic, simple to read, easy to understand, very accurate and very useful.

It's with their charts that I manage jimisound.com, But when I want information on demographics I use Google analytics. Using both gives me even more database to work with. I've been with Ipower for five years now.

There's been no problem that we have not overcome together, or I messed up and they fixed. Of course, it's a shared plan.

They've been great in every aspect of hosting jimsound.com. They've certainly put up with a lot from me that's for sure. I can be a real pill when it comes to my websites or their technologies. Ipower has done such a good job with me that even I'm amazed. I've gotten angry with them, scolded them, yelled at them, in so many words told them I wouldn't recommend them for shit and threatened to leave to another company.

They've learned when to be silent with me, when to defend themselves and when to tell me I'm wrong.
But what's easy to dismiss is that there is an actual working relationship between us.

Once I needed technical help with a server error and my call was routed to the Philippines. The tech barely spoke English. I was livid! I wasn't disrespectful to the tech, but boy did I give Ipower hell. Now they route all my calls to American techs. I've grown to love those guys over there and I've learned a lot from them due to developing a working relationship with them.

When you start your blog, you become an entrepreneur and just like any new business there is a learning curve. I have not had to depend on money from my blog sites so I've been quick to experiment with them or make changes to them just to learn new things about internet marketing, blogging, conversions, and web technology processes overall. That was giving me the chance to learn more about blogging in a shorter period of time. Now I want to stop fooling around and make some money with my blogs.

On that note I have to end this segment but before I go let me quickly add that affiliate marketing requires careful decision making too, about any and every aspect of a program. And most bloggers market an affiliate for one or more of their revenue streams. So the better you become at managing your blog, the more experience you'll bring to your affiliate marketing decisions too. And yes people are making money with blogs. Don't let the scuttlebutts fool you. Have a good one, see you next time.  Happy Blogging!

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