Popular Posts Can Help You Increase Web Traffic
How Popular Posts Can Help You Increase Web Traffic
Using data from popular posts
Tools like Google Analytics can offer up sobering data, as Slate author Farhad Manjoo highlights in the splendid opening sentences of his article on [how people read online content](https://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/06/how_people_read_online_why_you_won_t_finish_this_article.html):
> “I’m going to keep this brief, because you’re not going to stick around for long. I’ve already lost a bunch of you. For every 161 people who landed on this page, about 61 of you—38 percent—are already gone.”
Why are these posts popular?
Are you sure you’re on the right track?
Finally, with some irony, my film reviews aren’t the most popular topics on the site by readership, suggesting that a site focused on the film industry, how it works, what films I like and what it’s like to be a film critic would do much better than just focusing mostly on reviews. Food for thought, unquestionably.
And that’s exactly what I hope you can do on your own by looking at this simple Google Analytics data. Figure out what pages are most popular, which pages people spend the most time reading and thinking about, and even which pages most encourage them to explore your site, and produce more like ‘em! Seems easy, but youd’ be surprised how few online publishers are doing this consistently.
Landing pages are critical in analyzing popular posts
Finishing up my thoughts on popular posts
You can learn a lot from your most popular posts, but first, you have to know what they are. Then, you have to consider why they are popular and the overall value that they bring to your website.
Ultimately, you may be able to find ways to [improve the ones that exist already using some of these tips](https://blog.ezoic.com/good-bounce-rate-hacks-proven-tricks-improve-site/). However, you can only do this if you fully understand the data.
Questions, thoughts? Leave them below and I’ll write back with as many answers as I can.