We looked at three benefits that you can gain from using Google Analytics according to SEO White Hats in the previous post. Here are more benefits for you:

4)Google Analytics has a wonderful feature where you can also find out which site your website visitor had logged on before visiting your site.

9)If you own many websites, there is no need of logging in multiple times. With a single login, it is possible to keep a track on multiple websites.

I have been using Analytics for only a few months but let me tell you, it is very useful. For example, if you are working on getting more hits from SERPs, it is very easy to determine which keywords get you the most hits. Analytics shows you this in one glance. Another example is if you are looking to see which web sites refer the most traffic to your site. You can also find this out easily.

I am sure that there are more features to Analytics – I just haven’t discovered them yet. Have you?

I might be late on this one, but have you heard of Google Analytics? This is another product of Google which you can use to analyze your web site or your blog in terms of traffic. Google may have its quirks and flaws but I have to say that Google Analytics does give you a LOT of information about your web site.

In order to use this tool, you have to have a Google account – who doesn’t at this point? Just log in to the Analytics page and then you can set up your account. At first, you may be a bit overwhelmed by all those terms and charts and whatnot but Analytics is pretty easy to use. There are a lot of guides online which can help you learn the ins and outs of the tool.

What benefit can you get from using Google Analytics? I like how SEO White Hats outlines the benefits:

1)Unlike other expensive visitor tracking services, it is free. This helps put Google Analytics at the top of the list.

3)Google Analytics helps you find the pages and links in the website that visitors click on the most. With this information, you can improve the pages and position them and their links appropriately.

Let’s continue with the rest of the benefits in the next post.

You’ve probably heard about social networking. After all, it is all over the web, TV, and print. Still not sure as to what social networking is? Think Facebook. Think MySpace. Digg. Technorati. All these are example of social networking sites. Now you may be thinking – what does these things have to do with my business? These sites are not for business!

Well, think again. The truth is that these social networking sites can help you improve your online presence. How so?

Let’s take a look at Facebook. Becoming a member is free. All you need to do is sign up, fill out their registration form, follow the steps, and you are good to go. You need to build up your friends. You look for people whom you may know or people whom you may want to be friends with online. It is actually a great way to make new contacts, even new customers.

Better yet, you can place your web site’s URL or your blog’s URL in a prominent location on your page. People will then only have to click on the link to visit your blog. There are many ways by which you can promote your blog or web site on Facebook (as well as other social networking sites). You can comment on photos, links, profiles, etc. and place your link in your comment. This would not only create links to your site or blog, it would also make it easier for the people to click the link and visit your site or blog.

Of course, it is very important that you conduct yourself in a professional manner. Spamming other people’s accounts or shamelessly and tactlessly promoting your link will not do your business any good.

We talked about your commenting system in the previous post. Let us take a look at more ways to make the most out of comments.

Some bloggers take comments for granted. That is, they think that if their entry is good enough, comments will come naturally. This is true – but only to a certain degree. You should also do your part in encouraging your readers to comment. Aside from writing great content, try to encourage comments outright. At the end of the post, ask your readers what they think. End with an open ended question. More so, you can change your blogging template to reflect something like “Be the first one to comment!” instead of merely displaying “No comments.”

Another way to encourage comments would be to recognize those who leave their comments. Of course, their comments will be displayed on the individual posts. An additional incentive that I find particularly useful is to install a widget that shows the most recent comments. Seeing one’s name and ideas on the front page of a blog is something that can encourage readers to leave their mark.

Be open – do not ignore or block negative comments. This is the beauty of blogging, actually. People can voice out their thoughts, whether they are positive or negative. If you can post both the negative and positive on your blog, then why can’t readers share both the negative and positive as well? As such, resist the urge to delete negative comments. Instead, see if there is some value in their comments and act on them accordingly.

If you were asked what makes a blog a lot different from the conventional web site, what would your answer be? Off the top of my head, I would probably say something about the opportunity for interaction between blog (business) owner and the reader. Indeed, comments make blogs a whole lot more interesting and real as compared to static web sites.

Keeping this idea in mind, ask yourself how you are making use of commenting to your advantage. Has this concept even crossed your mind? Or maybe you have not really paid that much attention to it. In this post and the next few ones, let us take a deeper look at how you can make the most out of comments in your blog.

The first step to consider would be how you allow commenting. Having readers be able to leave comments is a great thing but this does not mean that you have no control as to the who and what. As you might probably know, spamming is rife online – even when it comes to comments. As such, you might want to employ specific measures as to who can comment and the content of the comment as well.

Just a note, though, balance is the key here. On the one end, you can allow everyone and anyone to comment without moderation. On the other end, you can require readers to sign up and then log in every time they want to leave a comment. In my mind, these two extremes may not be the best solutions. It would be better to take a moderate stance and make it easy for real readers to leave comments but make sure that automated software cannot leave comments.

Another way that you can make it easier for your readers to read your blog is to make sure that your categories and tags are created and grouped properly. Categories and tags exist for a reason – so that people can find certain posts under specific topics easily. If your posts are mislabeled, then readers may not find what they are looking for. Oh, of course, if they are patient enough to go through the whole archives they will eventually find the appropriate post. However, I doubt that everyone will want to do this all the time. So, try taking a second – even a third – look at your categories and tags and make sure that they are properly organized.

Don’t make it hard for readers to leave their comments. It is understandable that you would want to set certain measures in place in order to weed out spam comments. However, in your efforts to do so, do not overlook the ease that readers are looking for. For example, requiring readers to sign in is a very effective way of avoiding spam comments. This, however, would turn off many readers to leave their comments. Look for alternatives such as plug-ins or word verification instead.

Make subscribing easy. You want readers to subscribe to your blog so that they can keep up with your updates easily. Place the subscribe link or button on all pages and in an obvious location.

In the previous post, we focused on two general – but major – aspects of blogging that you need to work on in order to optimize your blog for your readers. Indeed, layout and content work hand in hand and should be designed with your readers in mind.

There are, however, many other aspects of blogging which you can pay attention to in order to make your blog better with your readers in mind. They may fall under either of the topics mentioned in the last post.

Easy navigation is a must for any blog that aims to be successful. This has something to do with both content and layout. Blogging is all about presenting content from a more realistic point of view AND it is about finding all the relevant content with minimal effort. That is why you should design your blog with the idea that you will be making it easy for your reader to find relevant posts, links to your archives, and even external links to your sources.

Some practical ideas:

-make sure the HOME button or link is easy to find; the header would be a good location for this.
-your archives should be easy to find as well; upper right or left column would be ideal. The idea is for the readers NOT to have to scroll down to find these links.
-other relevant links such as the About page should also be in a conspicuous location.
-sources or supplementary information to your posts should have links within the posts themselves. This way, the reader just has to click on the anchor text.

I was browsing through one of my blog network forums the other day and I ran across an interesting thread entitled “Describe the reason you blog in one word.” The responses were quite varied but in the pattern that I noticed is that bloggers who wrote personal blogs tended to write for themselves while bloggers who wrote for business purposes tend to have the reader in mind.

When it comes to business blogs, the reader should be the foremost consideration. Have you asked yourself whether your business blog is optimized for your readers? Take a look at some of these considerations that could help you tweak your blog.

Content
I’ve written about this time and again but it wouldn’t hard to do it again (and again and again, if necessary). Your content should be geared towards meeting the needs and expectations of your readers. You want them to keep coming back for more and to patronize your business. Give them what they want.

Layout
Again, content may be king but the layout matters a great deal as well. Try putting yourself in your readers’ shoes. How would you like to keep on reading long blocks of longwinded text? How would you like to get lost in those long blocks? I bet you wouldn’t appreciate that – neither would your readers. Provide them with a pleasant experience – both in terms of content and layout. A great combination of these two factors would give you good results in terms of reader satisfaction.