Beginners guide to wordpress analytics (and using them to grow your audience)

*Warning – this is an exceptionally long post.

You’ve heard of them, possibly from your boss, probably from sports and absolutely in gambling. Analytics have become a powerful force behind the things we do.

The process of collecting, storing and using data is not new. Scientists have been doing it for hundreds of years with research. It’s only been in recent years, however, that analytics have become an integral piece to business and life with respect to our computers and how we use them.

Why do analytics matter?

Quite simply, analytics matters because they work. You can be overwhelmed with data and the value of it may be unattainable. Applying analytics creates insights. Human brains were not built to process the amounts of data that are today being generated through social media, sensors, and more. So analytics allow us to compile data in an easy to understand format to use it in our favour.

With wordpress, analytics are essential to understanding your audience. If you’re here as a hobby-blogger, then you likely won’t desire knowing any of this. But, if you’re openly, willingly trying to grow your blog, analytics are an important piece to doing so.

WordPress has laid out analytics in simple graphs and charts to make it easy for every user to understand. Here are some of the ways you can use wordpress analytics in your favour.

UNDERSTAND WHERE YOUR AUDIENCE IS FROM

For me, the vast majority of the audience that reads #MillennialLifeCrisis are from the United States. Second behind the United States is the United Kingdom. This information is important to note because if you want the most people possible to see your blog posts, you want to be posting during the hours in which the most people will be awake.

The ‘Magic Hours’ for distribution of communication are between 11:30 am-2:00 pm and from 7:30 pm-8:30 pm. These time frames are widely used by companies around the world as windows in which to distribute their information. So, if the majority of your audience is from the United States, schedule your posts to be released such that they’ll fall within that window. If the majority of your audience stems from Australia, try to schedule your posts to be released during that window… from an Australian time zone.

UNDERSTAND HOW PEOPLE ARE FINDING YOUR BLOG

Use the “referrers” section to understand how people are finding your blog. In many, if not most, cases, the majority of referrers will be wordpress.com readers. This is because when we come on wordpress, we browse each other’s blogs. But take a moment to also understand where else people are finding you.

For me, I don’t have a facebook account for #MillennialLifeCrisis, or personally. So, seeing that 6 people have been referred to my blog today from Facebook shows that people are taking my content and sharing it to their facebook pages. This is not only a huge compliment, but can also show me that it might be a valuable thing for me to create a facebook page for which to share my content.

Take note of that listing on the bottom as well. ‘Search Engines’. Though it’s a small number, only two referrers today, it’s an important number. What ‘Search Engines’ is telling me is that two people were able to find my blog through their search of a subject on google. This is HUGE! If your blog posts can crack the google system, this means your content has the possibility of reaching an even greater audience than wordpress users because your blog posts will appear when people search the subjects you’re writing about.

‘POSTS & PAGES’ CAN TELL YOU WHICH OF YOUR POSTS RESONATED MOST WITH YOUR AUDIENCE

Review the ‘views’ listing under posts and pages and allow this to show you what posts have resonated most with your audience. By flipping between “Day” to “7 days” to “30 Days” all the way down to “All time” you can see which of your posts have received the most attention, not just on the days in which you posted them, but have continued to receive attention even though you might have posted them three months ago.

Knowing which content of yours has ‘withstood the test of time’ and not just fallen into the back pages of your blog can provide you insight towards popular topics. Popular topics help provide subjects you may wish to follow up on, subjects that could gain interest should you take a deep dive further into.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR ‘INSIGHTS’

This section tells you the most popular day of the week and hour of the day. Please note that this section will change/update weekly. But, if you’re someone that perhaps only posts one blog post per week, reading this insight might suggest that Monday is a good day to post next week.

Not only are ‘Tags & Categories’ how most people find you through WordPress, but they’re also how your blog finds its way into search engine listings. Using proper tags of your content can make a big difference so far as to who finds your content. So, if you’re trying to grow your audience/readership, ensure that you’re properly tagging your posts, and you’re reviewing this section of your analytics to see which tags/categories are gaining the most traction.

Case in point of proper categories being critical – posts that have been made to #MillennialLifeCrisis that I did not categorize have provided the lowest amount of traction to my blog.

If you’re unsure of which tags or categories to use, I recommend using the ‘search’ function to search tags and categories similar to the content you post. If you post reviews of music, search ‘Music’, ‘Music Reviews’, ‘Rock & Roll’, and so on and so forth. You can see which tags and categories have the most updates and gain the most traction.

Honestly, I could go into analytics all day long. There’s so much to make use of and so much to learn from. I think the most important lesson to take from your analytics, though, is that if you really want to grow your blog/audience/readership, they’re abundantly important.

Perhaps I’ll make another post like this further down the line. For now though, I think this is a good starting place.

Use your analytics wisely and they’ll be one of your greatest tools to blogging, communication, distribution, social media and online business in general. It’s all in using what you’ve got in front of you!

48 thoughts on “Beginners guide to wordpress analytics (and using them to grow your audience)”

  3. I was gonna say… that’s interesting that your content is being shared on Facebook! Tbh, I spend a great deal of time checking stats and sometimes I apply this stuff. Often times, I don’t. Thank you for sharing a breakdown of how this stuff works. This is helpful information new bloggers can really benefit from! 🌻🌻🌻

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Hey you, I thought you were supposed to be enjoying cottage life and not wasting your data looking at wordpress!

      As for the referrers, my page/posts have been shared some really weird places. There’s a list and not all which I can even see what it is – secure email servers, etc.. It’s truly amazing to see the place it’s been shared. It also makes me think I’m smart in staying anonymous. lol

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. We’re back at his house so I’m not at the cottage anymore 😬 The Stats are quite interesting. Some people say it’s creepy how we can see the countries and shares but I don’t think it’s creepy at all. It’s genius, really. And it’s so nice of WordPress to include stats in the free version too.

        Like

  5. These was very informative and helpful. It would seem my knowledge of analytics is only the tip of the iceberg.

    The details on the referrer was new to me.

    I sure wish I had info on the search terms search engines use to find my blog… but it doesn’t seem to be available anymore.

    Thanks for the post again! Have a nice day.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. If you click on “Search Terms” and then click on “All time” it should show you search terms people put into google or bing or other search engines which brought them to your blog.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. Thank you for letting me know. I appreciate the nomination. I don’t normally post these things, but I will definitely consider it!

      Like

      Reply

  10. Interesting post! Thanks for the insight. As an older travel blogger, this SEO stuff is really confusing! Plus I’m living in Croatia trying to blog to the USA (my home country), so the time zone thing is really important. Hvala from Croatia 🇭🇷!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  13. Great post! I learned a couple things I didn’t know. I’m trying to reduce my screen time after tonight for a bit (to see if it makes me less of an anxious nutcase!) but i am bookmarking this and will study it more closely when i come back. Thanks for posting.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  15. This was very informative. What about category? I keep meaning to find out more about that. I find with techie things I have to reread often. You did a good job explaining in simple terms. Maybe you should look into technical writing.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Category is important because it categorizes your posts into the wordpress directory and, when used properly, categorizes them for search engines. Sticking to 5-10 categories that everything can fall within will help your blog be seen.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  16. Pingback: On making your blog stand out… – #MILLENNIALLIFECRISIS
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  19. Pingback: Blogging 103: Blog Monetization – #MILLENNIALLIFECRISIS

  20. My most viewed post is in fact a good one in my opinion. But the post dangling on the bottom of ‘mostly viewed’ is also where my heart lies. I wonder if people really read the posts or just simply ‘like’ them or skim through it. I like to write them so that is one thing they didn’t capture in the stats. 😀 I learned some things here, thank you!

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    Reply

    1. Not sure if this is what you’re looking at but if you’re looking under “Insights” then what you’re seeing is the people who viewed your post. That’s why you’ll notice there’s a discrepancy between post views and post likes.

      As for the likes, I reckon there’s a least a handful from every post that are just clicking ‘like’ and moving on to the next post. To that, I say thank you for the like/traction. Helps with garnering more of an audience (people want to read what they think is popular) and wih SEO.

      If you least view post is also where your heart lies, you can use your analytics to determine optimal time of day and day of week to post and reblog that specific post, to see if it gets any more traction a second time around. One of the most popular bloggers I follow frequently reblogs his posts that he doesn’t get the traction on he wants. It’s a good trick to the trade, to ensure your blog content stays with your passions, but also to showcase you what how strategic timing can help! Showcase what matters most to you and do it a time that’s optimal for seeing if it matters to others too. That’s all analytics is, really.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  21. That is a great idea 😀 I can reblog it because, yes, it deserves to be seen. (imo). It is a longer post (about depression and loneliness not that ‘hot’ of a topic) so I can maybe shorten it, make 2 posts out of it … The hart and the statistics can go together. I work hard on my posts so there is no shame to ‘rework’ the content, give it more ‘light’ so it can grow 😀 Thank you for your answer, it is very helpful! ❤

    Liked by 1 person

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  22. I am on a slow learning curve it seems. I had sorta concluded to these points you make in your blog. However, your blog post really help solidify my understanding.

    I think I must be a zombie sleeping, that is, I only now discovered your wise blog. What I really like is, how in your monetizing blog you don’t speak about self hosting and you speak of using wordpress.com. a year or so ago I did my baby research into blogging and I concluded it is not necessary to be self hosted. What are your thoughts on being self hosted vs wordpress.com?

    Love your blogging tips

    Like

    Reply

    1. Self-hosting is a matter of personal preference.

      For me, I don’t think it’s necessary. The bonus to being on WordPress is that it’s provided me this great community to interact with. When you’re self-hosting, you don’t have the WordPress community to fall back on.

      If you’re an already established brand or well established blogger – such as one of my faves, The Blonde Abroad – self hosting might be a great option for you. You already have the guaranteed traffic, and, self-hosting allows increased functionality that wordpress can’t.

      But, if you’re like little ole me, or anyone else on this forum, just looking to meet like-minded people and share with the world and you don’t have an established readership, WordPress is a great place to be. It’s like a… built in support system that self-hosting doesn’t provide.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Oh that’s interesting. So would you say the bigger you get on wordpress.com it is better to self hosted?

        I love the wordpress community, and it is like minded.

        At the same time I want to grow and make money, and I think in my naivety that i can do it all through wordpress.com. i just don’t want the hassle of doing all the stuff wordpress.com does for me out of the box, manually in a hosted set up.

        Anyway, I am so far from a big blogger. I am still learning .

        Like

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