I’ve been using Performancing Metrics for a while now, and I find it much easier to navigate around than I do Google Analytics, and it’s nicer to look at. I have started to monitor visitors by tracking on the organisations that are visiting my travel blog

Yesterday I noticed that someone from Yahoo via Digg had visited my post about Yahoo Pipes, but what has surprised me are the number of travel agencies who have visited the blog via Google for passport and visa plus many trip planning keywords.

What’s this telling me as a blogger?

Well it’s telling me these companies are regularly returning they are finding the information they want and that the blog is useful to them. If I click on an organisation I can easily see which pages they visited, and also it records previous visits by that company.

From looking at the history I could see someone from the BBC, Guardian newspaper and Fox network are visiting my blog daily and spending a lot of time reading the content. This could be an employee planning their holiday, or someone interested in the content and what I have to say.

Interesting stuff..

I have recently changed my RSS feed to publish only part of the blog post, and this has drastically reduced the amount of splogs stealing my content. The downside is that syndicates who I have given permission to do not want to publish my content, unless it is published in it’s entirety.

I could and probably should fight these sploggers head on and publish my content in full, but as a blogger who writes in his spare time, it simply is not time effective for me to spend all my time contacting web hosts etc asking them to take the content down.

I’m sure there must be a solution, where I can stop them stealing the content – does anyone have any thoughts or ideas on this?

Getting a blog off the ground is hard work and takes a lot of effort but believe me when I say that in the long term it is worth it. Networking with other bloggers and professionals within your niche is essential, especially for new blogs.

Here’s a tip!

Visit a high profile blog within your niche – leave comment, and give your own opinions and views on the topic. Ask questions, and make sure that you do not spam, or leave any links which are not appropriate to the topic of discussion.

The result!

I did exactly this and have a link to my blog on the likes of Conde Nast Traveller, USA Today, and other high profile blogs. Having links on authority blogs like this helps you rank better in the search engines and also drives visitors to your blog.

Yahooed!

How many have you visited Yahoo Answers lately? I have, and I try to at least weekly. Why? Well, if someone is asking a question that I can answer, I reply, and where it asks you for a source you put your own blog.

Make sure the question is relating to your niche, and make an effort to write a concise answer. This drives traffic to your blog because as people search for the question in the search engines Yahoo Answers usually ranks quite well.

Have a great New Years Eve, and Happy New Year!

If there’s one tip that I would give to any blogger, it is keep in touch with news and events within your niche and make sure you write about it – don’t copy news, write from your own perspective giving your own views and opinions.

In the past 7 days I have received over 2,900 extra unique visitors from Google and 854 from StumbleUpon [at the time of writing] because I blogged about a news story which is going to have an impact on millions of travellers.

Now, I want every Performancing community member to write 1 blog tip in the comments, so that we can all learn from each other

I communicate with travel companies on a regular basis, either through email, or the telephone, and it amazes me why none of these companies don’t realise how powerful blogging can be for the business as a marketing tool.

The Internet has changed how people book a service or buying a product, and just like browsing through various shops or companies for a product or service in the high street, we are now browsing the Internet to evaluate which company offers the best and / or cheapest product or service.

Blogs enable people like me who don’t have a degree in the media to write about subjects that we are interested in, it enables us to show people that we are experienced and knowledgeable about a specific subject, and this can make you become a specialist or a recognised figure in the industry.

My blogging experience has meant that my blog articles have been featured in US, UK and Australian newspapers, and internet magazines, only this week, I received a telephone conversation from the local press, asking my opinion on the chaos at UK airports with the foiling of the potential bomb attacks.

Over time I hope to blog on performancing.com about my experiences as a blogger, and drop a few hints on marketing techniques that work to promote your blog and drive visitors to your blog, who stay, and regularly read your entries.

Now I can call myself a blogaholic.