As most bloggers know, Google Analytics is a powerful (and free) way to track your blog’s web metrics. Unfortunately, it was designed with AdWords advertisers in mind, so it comes with a lot more information than most bloggers need. Cluttered as it is with campaign and landing page reports, you might be tempted to look no further than the dashboard.

Don’t be daunted! Google Analytics is a veritable goldmine of information about your blog. Here is a list of the reports that you may actually find useful (and where to find them).

1. Referring Sites (under Traffic Sources)

Especially important if your blog is heavy into social media sites like Digg and Reddit, this report shows you where your visitors are coming from.

2. Keywords (under Traffic Sources)

If your blog is blessed with (or engineered for) high rankings on a term, this report will tell you what that term is and just how many visitors it’s producing.

3. Content by Title (under Content)

We all want to know what posts are being read and this report will tell you. It’s worth paying attention to the “Time on Page” and “Bounce Rate” columns, since a short time on page and high bounce rate might indicate a page driving visitors away from your blog. A quick look at this report is also a great way to generate that “Most Popular Posts” list.

4. New vs. Returning (under Visitors)

Everybody wants to know if they’ve got fans, and this report tells you just that. Granted, it doesn’t tell you exactly how many people you have subscribed to your feed. Google’s got Reader, though, and it’s about to buy up Feedburner, so it probably won’t be long before there’s a subscription report, too.

5. Map Overlay (under Visitors)

You’ll probably have to drill down to the country level for it to be useful, but knowing where your readers are in the world can be important information. You may discover that your audience is more international or localized than you would have guessed, allowing you to better target the content and timing of your posts. Are all of your visitors in California? Time your post for 8:00 PST so it’s at the top of their feed readers in the morning.

Perhaps best of all, the new Google Analytics interface allows you to save these reports to your dashboard (using the “Add to Dashboard” button at the top left), so you can still be lazy without losing sight of potentially useful data.

The post Top 5 Google Analytics Reports for Bloggers appeared first on DailyBlogTips.com.

Writing content and promoting your blog several times a week, every week can take its toll, especially when success takes time and patience to achieve. Many bloggers begin to lose interest. As their enthusiasm wanes, they may be stricken with the dreaded blogger’s block, allowing their post frequency to decline. Before you know it, the blog has died of disinterest and neglect. It’s a story told around the blogosphere time and again.

Don’t let it be the story of your blog! Often, with a little effort, you can reignite the same passion you felt when you first hit that “Post” button.

• Recognize your blog’s growth. Stop and compare where your blog is now to where it was a month or a year ago. You might be amazed by just how much it’s grown. How many more posts have you written? How much more money are you making? How much has your traffic or readership grown? Whatever your metric of success, you can go back and see just how far you’ve come.
• Celebrate the little victories. Maybe one of your posts is showing up in Google or Digg. Maybe you’ve gotten a new link or trackback. Maybe you’ve got a good conversation going in your comments. Whatever it is, take a moment to appreciate your success, however small. Remember, big successes are built on little ones.
• Set a new goal. Whenever you’re inspired by a success, don’t become complacent. Look at it as a stepping stone by setting an even higher goal. Earned $100 this month? Put your effort into earning $120 next month. Are 500 readers subscribed to your feed? Try to boost that to 600. The only limits to your blog’s success are self-imposed.
• Re-read old posts. It helps to go back and refresh your memory of past content. Like flipping through a photo album, you can relive the entire history of your blog. Old posts may help inspire new ones, or you may simply come to appreciate the depth your blog has achieved.
• Reaffirm your commitment. When you started your blog, you promised yourself that you’d stick with it through the long haul. Go back and reaffirm that promise. Kind of like a second wedding, you can look at your blog with fresh eyes and renewed commitment. Remember, today is the first day of the rest of your blog’s existence.
• Reward yourself for a job well done. Whenever you achieve a significant benchmark, be sure to treat yourself to something you like. Have a favorite food, watch a movie, or otherwise indulge yourself, all the while focusing on your blogging success as the cause. It’s operant conditioning; by rewarding success, you’re more likely to repeat it in the future.
• Give your blog a make-over. If your design has started to feel stale, spruce it up with a new template, widget, or plugin. This “fresh coat of paint” approach can give the sense of freshness that you might’ve been missing. Sure, it’s the same old blog. If it looks shiny and new, though, you may start treating it with the same attention you’d give a new blog.

The common point here is to change the way you think about your blog. By framing it in a context of newness and success, you can reignite your passion and stick to your commitment.

The post Reignite Your Passion for Blogging appeared first on DailyBlogTips.com.

We bloggers generally pride ourselves on uniqueness and creativity. We get a rush when we see others linking to our posts and reading our feeds, since it usually means that they find value in what we have to say. Unfortunately, not everyone who reads your blog does so for legitimate reasons. Some unscrupulous individuals in the blogosphere are only out to scrape your content for their own websites, ripping off your material and claiming it as their own.

Should I feel flattered?
After all, imitation is the greatest form of flattery, isn’t it? Generally speaking, no, you shouldn’t be happy about it. Scrapers have little respect for your content except insofar as it can make money for them. To use an analogy, they’re not celebrity impersonators; they’re guys in trench coats selling fake Rolex watches.

How do I stop it from happening?
Short of putting your blog behind a password barrier (which I don’t recommend), there’s really no defense against someone scraping your website. Basically, if they can read it, they can steal it, and there’s no sense in keeping everyone from reading your blog when 99% of your visitors don’t have any malicious intent.

There are some ways of hindering (but not stopping) scrapers. For example, if you’re technically savvy enough to understand server logs, you can deny access to your site based on IP, domain, or irregular user agent as recommended in the most recent Whiteboard Friday at SEOmoz. Note, however, that techniques like this can still be bypassed by clever scrapers.

How do I find scraper sites?
To catch scrapers in the act, just take a reasonably popular post on your site that’s a few weeks old. Find a short sentence in the post that seems unique, put quotes around it, and plug it into Google. Whatever comes up that isn’t your site is potentially a scraper. If you don’t find anything at first, try it with different posts and sentences until you’re satisfied that nobody’s scraping you.

Edit: Since writing this, several people have brought CopyScape to my attention as a useful tool for finding scrapers. It’s a search-like service that crawls a page on your site and tells you where others might have copied it. Despite requiring a paid membership to see full results, I’d say it’s pretty handy.

What should you do when you find them?
The first thing you should do is attempt to contact the scraper, requesting that they cease and desist their activities. This seems to have worked well for Maki over at Dosh Dosh, and it’s definitely the polite way of handling things (whether or not scrapers deserve the courtesy). If you don’t receive a positive response, it’s advisable to continue with a more aggressive approach.

There are several ways to make sure that scrapers get their comeuppance. For starters, if their site uses AdSense, you can report them to Google for a violation of the AdSense terms and conditions. The same may apply for other affiliate ad programs. If it results in their account being suspended, they won’t be making money off of your content or anyone else’s.

It’s also possible to tell the scraper’s web host about their illegitimate dealings. Just plug their domain name into any Whois lookup to get the contact info. Forget shutting down their income; if the host takes action, you may be able to shut down their entire site.

Blogs hosted on WordPress.com can also be reported for scraping.

Should I take legal action?
Copyright is tricky business on the World Wide Web, mainly because one country’s laws may not be respected across borders. If the scraper’s actions have been very damaging, you may want to consider legal action. Then again, there’s rarely a lot of harm done, so it’s probably best to forego a lawsuit. (Note: Since I’m not a legal professional, this is just my opinion. Go consult a lawyer if you want real legal advice.)

If you are considering mounting a lawsuit against a scraper, it may be worthwhile to review the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (in the US) or the European Union Copyright Directive (in Europe).

But aren’t they hurting my search engine rankings?
A few years ago, the answer might have been yes. Times have changed, though, and search engines have wised up to the practice of scraping. Chances are good that the scraper’s version of your content will be viewed as what it is, a copy. You’ll get the credit for your originality; they’ll get flagged as potential spam, eventually being penalized or delisted entirely.

Note that there’s a fine line between syndication and scraping. Some sites may echo your posts as a means of highlighting content around the web that they view as important. In fact, that’s one of the main reasons that RSS exists. Generally speaking, if the website in question gives you proper credit and features your content alongside others in a similar theme, its intent may not be malicious. If, however, their website is basically a copy of yours with no credit or links back to yours, it’s probably a scraper.

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