So you’ve spent countless hours analyzing traffic, channels, and conversions on Google Analytics; well done. Now it’s time to take a step back from everything and take an objective look at your content and its audience to see where they find the most value.

Jay Castro, part of the Mobile Content Marketing team @ Google, has some great tips to get you started. Here’s what he says about refining up your content strategy with Google Analytics:

Understand Who Your Audience Is

If your website has been live long enough (without being de-indexed or blocked for malicious practices), you will have some visitors.

That’s your famous “15 minutes of fame” right there.
No matter how bad your content is, someone somewhere will be sifting through it for any reason under the sun (good or bad).

But do you know who that guy is?
Knowing who your audience is and what they like is key to creating better content that actually succeeds in converting visitors into loyal readers. 

The first thing you see on Google Analytics is audience overview. If you take the time to dig a little deeper than the sessions, you can unearth some tasty bits of insights about your audience.

And I’m not talking about individual user reports in User Explorer. I am talking ‘broad spectrum’ audience analysis — age group, gender, and most importantly, interests based on browsing, search, and purchase activity.

Once enabled, Demographics and Interests reports are a goldmine of information about your audience.

In Audience reports, go to Interests (1) >> Other Categories (2) (yup, the very same used in AdWords targeting!). Select a goal (3) and get cracking. For instance, here’s Google Merchandise Store’s Audience Interest Report (Goal: Engaged Users):

The granular category (News > Business News > Company News > Company Earnings) has some good numbers! But there’s more to be found when you click on the category name. You’ll see the audience with this interest segmented by age…

Wait, 18-24 year-olds are into News?!

…followed by gender…

Oh. It’s just the men, apparently. (FML)

And if I add a primary dimension for affinity categories, I will get to the gold:

Ha! Paydirt!

Credit for data goes to Google Analytics Demo Account (covered here).From this series of (increasingly specific) reports, you can tell that 18-24-year-old males looking for Business News constitute a significant portion of Google Merchandise Store’s engaged audience.

The last report (affinity categories) can be used to identify what this audience segment likes and responds to in general. See what I mean about delving deep?

Publishers with better things to do with their time than know their audience can get a broader view with interests overview. Here’s one based on avg. session duration (poor man’s substitute for ‘Engaged Users’ goal).

What can you do with this information?
Why, find out ways to incorporate these interest categories within your content strategy to increase your reach and engagement. Obviously.

Analyze Your Content for Performance

Content Grouping is, by far, the best (and most underrated) Analytics feature for publishers and bloggers everywhere. It lets you divide and bundle your published content in ways that make sense to you.

Once you’ve bundled your content in groups, you get a simplified look at reports in every page and audience report, including Behaviour Flow (more on that in a moment). You can still drill down to individual pages (by page title or URL) for in-depth analysis.

Castro suggests you use this incredibly nifty feature to simplify content analysis so you can find, focus, and improve on:

> Identify slow loading web pages

Page speed == User Experience is practically indisputable. And some of your content (for instance, posts with more images than general, infographics, video content, etc.) may be lagging behind.
An easy way to identify these slow-pokes is: Group your content (here’s how) by type, author, topic/category, or any other parameter that seems logical to you. Then go to Behavior >> Site Speed >> Page Timings (1). You can segment the report by content groups as primary dimension (2).

Here’s an example from demo account that shows avg. page load time and bounce rate for content group: Product categories. Note how the group with highest avg. page load time (Brands) also has the highest bounce rate (16.07%):

You don’t say?

Hone in on these pages with everything you’ve got and improve their performance.

> Identify pages with low AdSense CTRs

Group content by topic (WordPress users can go with categories taxonomy) and use the AdSense Pages Report (here’s how you link AdSense with Google Analytics). Use the AdSense Pages metric to compare content groups with lowest click-through-rates.

Tip: Drill down to individual pages within lowest CTR pages. Focus on increasing acquisition with SEO and Social shares directed specifically to these pages.
We also suggest you find out and monetize upon content groups that have:

• Engagement (high values for behaviour metrics — avg. session duration, page depth, pageviews, and returning visitors)
• Social shares/mentions (Set-up analytics for social plugins or simply use this brilliant dashboard by Justin Cutroni, available in Solutions Gallery)

Learn How Visitors Navigate Your Site

Your visitors enter, navigate, and leave your site in ways you probably never thought about. Here’s how you can decode the navigation patterns on your site.

> Landing Page Report

To Google Analytics, ‘landing page’ means a visitor’s point of entry to your site. Go to Behaviour >> Site Content >> Landing Pages (1). Here’s what Demo Account landing page report says about Google Merchandise store (primary dimension — content group: clothing by gender(2))

Women’s clothing: Top conversion rate (purchase completion goal) but dismal number of sessions.

You can see these divided by content groups and drill down further to individual pages…

Like so.

Your aim: Identify content groups/ pages with highest bounce rates and fix them. Another aim: Identify pages that convert best and figure out why. We also love the following GA features:

• Reverse Goal Path: Analyse content that helps conversions (2nd and 3rd landing pages) and use it to funnel audience towards completion of primary website/blog goals with internal linking

• Behaviour Flow: Find out how visitors arrive and move across your website.

Wrapping Up

The data in Google Analytics can give you some startling insight into the weaknesses and strengths of your current content strategy. The key, as Castro eloquently puts it, is “to jump into the data, have fun, and experiment”.

How to Use Google Analytics to Improve Your Content Strategy

How to Use Google Analytics to Improve Your Content Strategy

So you’ve spent countless hours analyzing traffic, channels, and conversions on Google Analytics; well done. Now it’s time to take a step back from everything and take an objective look at your content and its audience to see where they find the most value.

Jay Castro, part of the Mobile Content Marketing team @ Google, has some great tips to get you started. Here’s what he says about refining up your content strategy with Google Analytics:

Understand Who Your Audience Is

If your website has been live long enough (without being de-indexed or blocked for malicious practices), you will have some visitors.

That’s your famous “15 minutes of fame” right there.
No matter how bad your content is, someone somewhere will be sifting through it for any reason under the sun (good or bad).

But do you know who that guy is?
Knowing who your audience is and what they like is key to creating better content that actually succeeds in converting visitors into loyal readers. 

The first thing you see on Google Analytics is audience overview. If you take the time to dig a little deeper than the sessions, you can unearth some tasty bits of insights about your audience.

And I’m not talking about individual user reports in User Explorer. I am talking ‘broad spectrum’ audience analysis — age group, gender, and most importantly, interests based on browsing, search, and purchase activity.

Once enabled, Demographics and Interests reports are a goldmine of information about your audience.

In Audience reports, go to Interests (1) >> Other Categories (2) (yup, the very same used in AdWords targeting!). Select a goal (3) and get cracking. For instance, here’s Google Merchandise Store’s Audience Interest Report (Goal: Engaged Users):

The granular category (News > Business News > Company News > Company Earnings) has some good numbers! But there’s more to be found when you click on the category name. You’ll see the audience with this interest segmented by age…

Wait, 18-24 year-olds are into News?!

…followed by gender…

Oh. It’s just the men, apparently. (FML)

And if I add a primary dimension for affinity categories, I will get to the gold:

Ha! Paydirt!

Credit for data goes to Google Analytics Demo Account (covered here).From this series of (increasingly specific) reports, you can tell that 18-24-year-old males looking for Business News constitute a significant portion of Google Merchandise Store’s engaged audience.

The last report (affinity categories) can be used to identify what this audience segment likes and responds to in general. See what I mean about delving deep?

Publishers with better things to do with their time than know their audience can get a broader view with interests overview. Here’s one based on avg. session duration (poor man’s substitute for ‘Engaged Users’ goal).

What can you do with this information?
Why, find out ways to incorporate these interest categories within your content strategy to increase your reach and engagement. Obviously.

Analyze Your Content for Performance

Content Grouping is, by far, the best (and most underrated) Analytics feature for publishers and bloggers everywhere. It lets you divide and bundle your published content in ways that make sense to you.

Once you’ve bundled your content in groups, you get a simplified look at reports in every page and audience report, including Behaviour Flow (more on that in a moment). You can still drill down to individual pages (by page title or URL) for in-depth analysis.

Castro suggests you use this incredibly nifty feature to simplify content analysis so you can find, focus, and improve on:

> Identify slow loading web pages

Page speed == User Experience is practically indisputable. And some of your content (for instance, posts with more images than general, infographics, video content, etc.) may be lagging behind.
An easy way to identify these slow-pokes is: Group your content (here’s how) by type, author, topic/category, or any other parameter that seems logical to you. Then go to Behavior >> Site Speed >> Page Timings (1). You can segment the report by content groups as primary dimension (2).

Here’s an example from demo account that shows avg. page load time and bounce rate for content group: Product categories. Note how the group with highest avg. page load time (Brands) also has the highest bounce rate (16.07%):

You don’t say?

Hone in on these pages with everything you’ve got and improve their performance.

> Identify pages with low AdSense CTRs

Group content by topic (WordPress users can go with categories taxonomy) and use the AdSense Pages Report (here’s how you link AdSense with Google Analytics). Use the AdSense Pages metric to compare content groups with lowest click-through-rates.

Tip: Drill down to individual pages within lowest CTR pages. Focus on increasing acquisition with SEO and Social shares directed specifically to these pages.
We also suggest you find out and monetize upon content groups that have:

• Engagement (high values for behaviour metrics — avg. session duration, page depth, pageviews, and returning visitors)
• Social shares/mentions (Set-up analytics for social plugins or simply use this brilliant dashboard by Justin Cutroni, available in Solutions Gallery)

Learn How Visitors Navigate Your Site

Your visitors enter, navigate, and leave your site in ways you probably never thought about. Here’s how you can decode the navigation patterns on your site.

> Landing Page Report

To Google Analytics, ‘landing page’ means a visitor’s point of entry to your site. Go to Behaviour >> Site Content >> Landing Pages (1). Here’s what Demo Account landing page report says about Google Merchandise store (primary dimension — content group: clothing by gender(2))

Women’s clothing: Top conversion rate (purchase completion goal) but dismal number of sessions.

You can see these divided by content groups and drill down further to individual pages…

Like so.

Your aim: Identify content groups/ pages with highest bounce rates and fix them. Another aim: Identify pages that convert best and figure out why. We also love the following GA features:

• Reverse Goal Path: Analyse content that helps conversions (2nd and 3rd landing pages) and use it to funnel audience towards completion of primary website/blog goals with internal linking

• Behaviour Flow: Find out how visitors arrive and move across your website.

Wrapping Up

The data in Google Analytics can give you some startling insight into the weaknesses and strengths of your current content strategy. The key, as Castro eloquently puts it, is “to jump into the data, have fun, and experiment”.

The Inside AdSense blog is full of great tips and expert advice on topics of great interest to a modern web publisher such as content, ad viewability, mobile optimization, analytics, and more.

In Keeping up with AdSense, we compile the top insights in one handy little list. We know your time’s better spent reading one post instead of 10, and sometimes you just feel lazy — which is fine, too.

Either way, you’re welcome.

1. Optimize Mobile Ad Sizes

AdSense stresses the importance of optimizing your mobile ad sizes for maximum revenue. Statistically speaking:

• RPM increase could be possible if you swap 320×50 ad unit with 320×100 (and place it slightly above the fold).
• Mix 300×250 unit with content below the fold for a potential increase in CPM.
• Keep a minimum 150 px whitespace between (enhanced-features-enabled) text ads and content to prevent accidental clicks and ruined UX.

Then again, these are guidelines, what worked for others may not work for you. Use your own good judgement and optimize to find ad placements and sizes that bring you the most revenue.

2. Matched Content

Matched content mixes relevant content from your own site and sponsored content (from around the web), this is AdSense’s foray into the native ad segment.

Put this unit where it matters — in an area where it will be highly viewable (more on that in a moment) and will look enticing enough to engage your audience.

Here are some matched content placement best practices.

Also, make sure you’re constantly monitoring their performance. Here are  some matched content metrics to monitor.

3. Improve Ad Viewability

This is the bar for viewability — at  least half of your ad unit’s pixels should be visible in the viewport for minimum 1 second. This is the next ad currency in a UX-conscious web.

Think with Google had some great insights on ad viewability. According to the report, what works best are relatively small (120×240 and 240×400 px) vertical ad units placed near the fold.

It is also stated that:

While viewability varies across industry verticals, content that holds user’s attention works best everywhere.

Bottom line: You want more viewability for ad units? Create awesome, engaging content, regardless of your niche.

4. Be Social With Google

There’s content with ‘long shelf-life’—the evergreen, helpful information that users just keep coming back to without fail. Then there’s viral content.

Adsense assigns significance on social media and the need to duly cover topical themes and events to make an impact with your social marketing. Find the latest topics with Google Trends, give it all you got with other Research Tools and create covetable content that’ll be instant hits with your audience.

Incorporate this in bite-sized, social-media-friendly formats in manners that will resonate with your audience in your strategy and you will get noticed like never before.

Here are some tips from AdSense blog on how to amplify content with social media.

5. Audience Engagement Tools

AdSense shared some UX and brand-building tips from its well-known Guide to Audience Engagement to help you create and nurture a fantastic image online.

• Maintain a consistent voice and image across all touchpoints that your brand has with the audience. This includes the website, blogs, and just…all of the social media channels.
• Know your audience. Know what motivates them to share content. According to NYT, 68% people share content.
• Don’t just share and leave ’em hanging. Engage and involve your audience to create relationships that last with a brand that’s human.

There’s also a nice little list of tools to help you kick start your social media strategy. Go ahead and check it out here.

6. Get AMPed Up

AMP Project was born in an attempt to make mobile web browsing faster for every Joe who tried and failed to find information online on their phone in the time-limit of 3 seconds.

In February this year, Google started giving out positions in “Top Stories” section (for relevant mobile searches) to pages created with AMP, which immediately led to widespread adoption of AMP amongst publishers (for obvious SERP-centric reasons with a bare-bones, superfast mobile-UX benefits thrown in for good measure).

Emboldened by this success, Google launched an early preview of expanded AMP support earlier this month.

The purpose is to gain feedback from users, web developers, and site owners to “create a better mobile search experience” and to test the waters before making AMP more universally available later this year.

This gives enough time for publishers to get their act together and begin implementing AMP on their site pages.

We recently published a publisher’s guide to AMP which should come in handy if you’re still confused about the basics.

Seriously though, no matter which side you fall on, this is good news.

8. Better Content With Google Analytics

Jay Castro (of Google’s Mobile Content marketing team ) put out a brilliant post compiling ways to improve your content strategy with Google Analytics.

Here’s our take on it (with step-wise guides and hypothetical instances thrown in for laughs).

Key Takeaway

AdSense wants you (yes you!) to focus on creating content your audience wants and loves. To do that, you’ll need to know who your audience is and what exactly they expect from you.

Optimize content and ad units for mobile. Get up and AMP up your mobile experience.  Tell some stories, be funny (or radical or silly… just find your own voice), and establish a presence.

Keeping up with AdSense

Keeping up with AdSense

The Inside AdSense blog is full of great tips and expert advice on topics of great interest to a modern web publisher such as content, ad viewability, mobile optimization, analytics, and more.

In Keeping up with AdSense, we compile the top insights in one handy little list. We know your time’s better spent reading one post instead of 10, and sometimes you just feel lazy — which is fine, too.

Either way, you’re welcome.

1. Optimize Mobile Ad Sizes

AdSense stresses the importance of optimizing your mobile ad sizes for maximum revenue. Statistically speaking:

• RPM increase could be possible if you swap 320×50 ad unit with 320×100 (and place it slightly above the fold).
• Mix 300×250 unit with content below the fold for a potential increase in CPM.
• Keep a minimum 150 px whitespace between (enhanced-features-enabled) text ads and content to prevent accidental clicks and ruined UX.

Then again, these are guidelines, what worked for others may not work for you. Use your own good judgement and optimize to find ad placements and sizes that bring you the most revenue.

2. Matched Content

Matched content mixes relevant content from your own site and sponsored content (from around the web), this is AdSense’s foray into the native ad segment.

Put this unit where it matters — in an area where it will be highly viewable (more on that in a moment) and will look enticing enough to engage your audience.

Here are some matched content placement best practices.

Also, make sure you’re constantly monitoring their performance. Here are  some matched content metrics to monitor.

3. Improve Ad Viewability

This is the bar for viewability — at  least half of your ad unit’s pixels should be visible in the viewport for minimum 1 second. This is the next ad currency in a UX-conscious web.

Think with Google had some great insights on ad viewability. According to the report, what works best are relatively small (120×240 and 240×400 px) vertical ad units placed near the fold.

It is also stated that:

While viewability varies across industry verticals, content that holds user’s attention works best everywhere.

Bottom line: You want more viewability for ad units? Create awesome, engaging content, regardless of your niche.

4. Be Social With Google

There’s content with ‘long shelf-life’—the evergreen, helpful information that users just keep coming back to without fail. Then there’s viral content.

Adsense assigns significance on social media and the need to duly cover topical themes and events to make an impact with your social marketing. Find the latest topics with Google Trends, give it all you got with other Research Tools and create covetable content that’ll be instant hits with your audience.

Incorporate this in bite-sized, social-media-friendly formats in manners that will resonate with your audience in your strategy and you will get noticed like never before.

Here are some tips from AdSense blog on how to amplify content with social media.

5. Audience Engagement Tools

AdSense shared some UX and brand-building tips from its well-known Guide to Audience Engagement to help you create and nurture a fantastic image online.

• Maintain a consistent voice and image across all touchpoints that your brand has with the audience. This includes the website, blogs, and just…all of the social media channels.
• Know your audience. Know what motivates them to share content. According to NYT, 68% people share content.
• Don’t just share and leave ’em hanging. Engage and involve your audience to create relationships that last with a brand that’s human.

There’s also a nice little list of tools to help you kick start your social media strategy. Go ahead and check it out here.

6. Get AMPed Up

AMP Project was born in an attempt to make mobile web browsing faster for every Joe who tried and failed to find information online on their phone in the time-limit of 3 seconds.

In February this year, Google started giving out positions in “Top Stories” section (for relevant mobile searches) to pages created with AMP, which immediately led to widespread adoption of AMP amongst publishers (for obvious SERP-centric reasons with a bare-bones, superfast mobile-UX benefits thrown in for good measure).

Emboldened by this success, Google launched an early preview of expanded AMP support earlier this month.

The purpose is to gain feedback from users, web developers, and site owners to “create a better mobile search experience” and to test the waters before making AMP more universally available later this year.

This gives enough time for publishers to get their act together and begin implementing AMP on their site pages.

We recently published a publisher’s guide to AMP which should come in handy if you’re still confused about the basics.

Seriously though, no matter which side you fall on, this is good news.

8. Better Content With Google Analytics

Jay Castro (of Google’s Mobile Content marketing team ) put out a brilliant post compiling ways to improve your content strategy with Google Analytics.

Here’s our take on it (with step-wise guides and hypothetical instances thrown in for laughs).

Key Takeaway

AdSense wants you (yes you!) to focus on creating content your audience wants and loves. To do that, you’ll need to know who your audience is and what exactly they expect from you.

Optimize content and ad units for mobile. Get up and AMP up your mobile experience.  Tell some stories, be funny (or radical or silly… just find your own voice), and establish a presence.

Increasing traffic—users, readers, fans, customers, the people who visit your site—this is the lifeblood of your online operation.

 

You need people coming to your site. And once you do, if they love it, they’ll recommend it to their family and friends, colleagues and coworkers—and you’re off to earning money online.

But if you’re having trouble attracting people, you’re not alone. It’s not easy. And there’s no full-proof, one-size-fits-all formula for increasing traffic.

Fortunately, the internet offers a huge opportunity to reach people. More than 3 billion people around the world use the Internet.

There’s a smartphone in virtually everyone’s pocket—according to some sources, by 2020 more than 70% of the world’s population will have a mobile phone.

People want to be entertained and they want to connect with people like you who are passionate about their interests.

Increasing traffic is not an easy task, but it is worthwhile and rewarding

You need to attract many, many people to generate real cash. If you’ve run a site in the past, then you know it takes careful planning to create a loyal following and build up your page views. And there are a lot of ways to get traffic to your site.

Advertising, social media, press releases, affiliate marketing, word-of-mouth marketing—you have so many ways to get the word out. But all of it requires time and money—and nothing is guaranteed.

Don’t worry! There are some good strategies for increasing traffic. Here are 5 of them:

Step 1. Invest in native advertising

Sometimes the best way to get people to your site is to spread the word when your potential visitors are looking at other sites.

With native advertising solutions, you can advertise your site with ads that seamlessly weave into the content that your potential visitors are already viewing.

> A few top native advertisers

Infolinks: Seamlessly weaving ads into your blog and website content, Infolinks is a monetization solution that gives your potential visitors valuable native advertising while they’re on your site.

Outbrain: Capturing your target audience’s attention by recommending your content on the web’s largest and most respected media sites, such as CNN, People and ESPN, Outbrain gives your business a premium publishing platform.

Taboola: Recommending editorial and sponsored content across the web’s most popular sites, Taboola helps you monetize your content and drive engagement.

Step 2. Make sure you rank well on search

Most people search using Google, which returns search results based on a complex algorithm. Increasing traffic using organic search is not easy and doesn’t happen in a day, but here are a few things you can do to get started:

• Writing interesting, original content that people want to read and other sites want to link to
• Posting images with captions
• Using keywords that people use when they search. For example, if you want to reach car lovers, use phrases that car lovers use when they search on Google

> The world’s top search engines

Google: The world’s most-popular search engine, handling more than three billion searches every day.

Bing: Search engine developed by Microsoft, which features web, image, video, local, news and product search.

YouTube: The world’s number one video site and also the number one destination for people searching for How to videos.

Insider tip: There are many ways to improve where you show in search results. But it takes a savvy understanding of how search engines work. To help you know more, here’s an excellent guide to SEO from Moz.

Step 3. Get on the right social networks

When you want to leverage the trending social platforms of the day—Facebook is the best example—you can advertise on these sites. But Facebook isn’t the only platform that can help you with increasing traffic.

If you write about business or professional topics, try LinkedIn. If you’re a photographer or a chef, Pinterest offers a great platform to showcase your work. If you’re looking to reach a younger group of people, try Instagram.

But more importantly, you can set up a page on these social sites and attract a loyal following by getting the word out about your blog or site.

> The most popular social platforms

Facebook: With over 1.3 billion users, Facebook is the largest social network in the world.

Twitter: Offering a highly engaged audience—the average user spends 170 minutes on Twitter per day—Twitter offers great potential.

LinkedIn: With more than 400 million business professionals, LinkedIn is a terrific place to connect with people about business topics.

Step 4. Advertise online with PPC advertising

PPC or pay-per-click advertising is a great way to attract people to your site. You pay for placement on Google or Yahoo or LinkedIn or Twitter, and in return you get to tell people about what you have to offer.

> The best PPC platforms

Google AdWords: The world’s leading advertising platform—AdWords gives you the opportunity to get your site in front of people searching on google.com.

Media Net: The Yahoo-Bing network gives you relevant ads and helpful tracking tools so you can see how well your ads are performing.

Infolinks: The 3rd largest monetization network after AdSense and Amazon, Infolinks generates revenue for more than 130,000 online publishers in 130 countries.

Insider tip: You can spend a lot of money on PPC advertising or just a little. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad. But you need to have a good idea of your budget, your audience and what you need to offer to attract customers. To help you advance your site, take a look at this introductory guide to PPC advertising.

Step 5. Spruce up your website

The first thing to do—even before you do anything else—is to make sure your site is somewhere people enjoy visiting. A poorly designed site is a site that most people will click or tap away from—because it’s not easy to use.

> The best sites to make your site

Squarespace: An all-in-one solution for anyone looking to create a beautiful website. Whether you need a simple page, a professional blog, or an online store, it’s all included with a Squarespace site.

GoDaddy: With GoDaddy, you can build a professional site easily from hundreds of customizable designs.

Conclusion: Get traffic, make money

If you’re already running a blog or a website, you’re on the right track. More than 3 billion people around the world use the Internet.

To help reach new customers, successful businesses want to partner with successful bloggers and site owners.

That’s where your ambition and drive to be better comes in. When you get more traffic, you open up the opportunity to make a steady source of income.

Tips to Increasing Traffic on Your Website

Tips to Increasing Traffic on Your Website

Increasing traffic—users, readers, fans, customers, the people who visit your site—this is the lifeblood of your online operation.

 

You need people coming to your site. And once you do, if they love it, they’ll recommend it to their family and friends, colleagues and coworkers—and you’re off to earning money online.

But if you’re having trouble attracting people, you’re not alone. It’s not easy. And there’s no full-proof, one-size-fits-all formula for increasing traffic.

Fortunately, the internet offers a huge opportunity to reach people. More than 3 billion people around the world use the Internet.

There’s a smartphone in virtually everyone’s pocket—according to some sources, by 2020 more than 70% of the world’s population will have a mobile phone.

People want to be entertained and they want to connect with people like you who are passionate about their interests.

Increasing traffic is not an easy task, but it is worthwhile and rewarding

You need to attract many, many people to generate real cash. If you’ve run a site in the past, then you know it takes careful planning to create a loyal following and build up your page views. And there are a lot of ways to get traffic to your site.

Advertising, social media, press releases, affiliate marketing, word-of-mouth marketing—you have so many ways to get the word out. But all of it requires time and money—and nothing is guaranteed.

Don’t worry! There are some good strategies for increasing traffic. Here are 5 of them:

Step 1. Invest in native advertising

Sometimes the best way to get people to your site is to spread the word when your potential visitors are looking at other sites.

With native advertising solutions, you can advertise your site with ads that seamlessly weave into the content that your potential visitors are already viewing.

> A few top native advertisers

Infolinks: Seamlessly weaving ads into your blog and website content, Infolinks is a monetization solution that gives your potential visitors valuable native advertising while they’re on your site.

Outbrain: Capturing your target audience’s attention by recommending your content on the web’s largest and most respected media sites, such as CNN, People and ESPN, Outbrain gives your business a premium publishing platform.

Taboola: Recommending editorial and sponsored content across the web’s most popular sites, Taboola helps you monetize your content and drive engagement.

Step 2. Make sure you rank well on search

Most people search using Google, which returns search results based on a complex algorithm. Increasing traffic using organic search is not easy and doesn’t happen in a day, but here are a few things you can do to get started:

• Writing interesting, original content that people want to read and other sites want to link to
• Posting images with captions
• Using keywords that people use when they search. For example, if you want to reach car lovers, use phrases that car lovers use when they search on Google

> The world’s top search engines

Google: The world’s most-popular search engine, handling more than three billion searches every day.

Bing: Search engine developed by Microsoft, which features web, image, video, local, news and product search.

YouTube: The world’s number one video site and also the number one destination for people searching for How to videos.

Insider tip: There are many ways to improve where you show in search results. But it takes a savvy understanding of how search engines work. To help you know more, here’s an excellent guide to SEO from Moz.

Step 3. Get on the right social networks

When you want to leverage the trending social platforms of the day—Facebook is the best example—you can advertise on these sites. But Facebook isn’t the only platform that can help you with increasing traffic.

If you write about business or professional topics, try LinkedIn. If you’re a photographer or a chef, Pinterest offers a great platform to showcase your work. If you’re looking to reach a younger group of people, try Instagram.

But more importantly, you can set up a page on these social sites and attract a loyal following by getting the word out about your blog or site.

> The most popular social platforms

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As a follow-on to the discussion of statics we need to consider whether a material subject to a given set of forces will break and if not, how much will it bend?  To determine this, the first step is to compute the stress in the material. There are two flavors of stress, the normal stress which is the stress in the direction perpendicular to an imaginary plane in the material, and the shear stress which is the stress in the direction parallel to that same imaginary plane. Of course, this imaginary plane could be in any direction, so the magnitude of the normal and shear stresses depends strongly on the choice of said imaginary plane. How should one choose said plane and what is the relationship between normal and shear stresses? We’ll discuss that shortly, but first we’ll individually define normal then shear stress.

 

          

where  F  is  the  force  (either  tension  or  compression)  acting  perpendicular  to  an  imaginary  plane surface passing through a piece of material and A is the cross section area. It is called “normal” not in the sense of being “typical” or “standard” but in the sense of being perpendicular or orthogonal to the cross-section of the material. Stress is defined as positive if the material is in tension (i.e. the material  is being  pulled  apart)  and  negative  if  the  material  is  in  compression (i.e. being  squeezed together).  From the definition it is clear that stress has units of force/area, i.e. the same as pressure. The units are typically N/m2 or lbf/in2. Often the unit of “kips” (kilopounds per square inch = 1000 lbf/in2) is used to report stress.

In  order  to  characterize  the  deformation  of  a  material  in  response  to  stress  we  define  another property  called  strain  (ε) which is  the  fractional  amount  of  elongation  (increase  in  length)  or contraction (decrease  in  length) in  a  material  caused  by  a  stress.   For  example,  if  under  a  given amount of tensile stress, a steel bar stretches from a length (L) of 1.00 inch to 1.01 inch (a change in length, ΔL, of 0.01 inch) the strain = (1.0 – 1.00)/1.00 = 0.01. In other words, 

       

For most materials (other than gooey ones, i.e. Silly Putty™, Play-Doh™, …) the amount of strain before failure is relatively small (i.e. less that 0.1, meaning that the material deforms less than 10% before failing.)

An elastic material has a linear relationship between stress and strain, i.e. 

        

where E is called the elastic modulus, i.e. the slope of the plot of σ vs. ε in the elastic region shown in Figure 10. Note that since ε is dimensionless, E also has units of force per unit area.

The strength of a material is generally reported in terms of the maximum stress it can withstand. For  a  sufficiently  small  stress,  materials  return  to  their  original  length  or  shape  after  the  stress  is removed. The smallest stress for which the material does not return to its original length or shape after the stress is removed is called the yield stress (σ yield). Beyond this stress, generally the slope of the σ vs. ε plot generally (but not always) becomes smaller. There is often an increase in slope as ε is increased  still  further,  up  to  a  maximum σ called  the  “ultimate  stress”,  beyond  which σ actually decreases as ε increases, leading finally to fracture (breakage) of the material at which point it can no longer  hold  any  stress.  A  material’s  yield  stress  may  be  (and  usually  is)  different  in  tension, compression and shear.

Note that we can write Equation 20 in the form F/A = (ΔL/L)E or F = (EA/L)(ΔL), which looks just like the force on a linear spring, F = kx, with k = EA/L.  (One might wonder what happened to the – sign, that is, isn’t F = -kx? Stress is usually defined as positive in tension where as for the spring  F  is  defined  as  positive  in  compression.)   So  E  and  the  material  dimensions  A  and  L determine its “spring constant.”  Figure 10 shows examples of stress vs. strain (σ vs. ε) relationships for different materials.  A ductile material such as steel will yield significantly before fracture whereas a brittle material such as a ceramic or concrete will fail without significant yielding, that is, the σ vs. ε curve is nearly linear up to the failure point. This doesn’t mean that ceramics are necessary weak, in fact they may have higher E than ductile materials, but they are unforgiving to over-stressing (really, over-straining.)

E  and  yield  or  ultimate  stress  have  the  same  units  (Pa  or  lbf/in2)  but  there  is  no  particular relationship between E and yield or ultimate stress. Materials can be hard (high E) but break easily (low yield  or  ultimate  stress)  or  vice  versa. 

      

    

direction stress is applied relative to the material. Many engineering materials are anisotropic, i.e. they are not isotropic. A typical example of such materials is graphite-epoxy composites composed of fibers of graphitic carbon (which have very high yield stress in the plane of the graphite sheets, and low yield stress in the direction perpendicular to this plane) that are bonded to an epoxy polymer, which has relatively low yield stress in tension but high yield stress in compression and shear. The result is a material that has very high stress for its weight. The Boeing 787 uses composites for most of  the  structure;  this  has  the  advantage  of  high ratio  of  yield  stress to  weight,  no  possibility  of corrosion, and relative ease of forming into any desired shape.  (One could also say that a much older material, i.e. wood, is also an anisotropic composite material.)

Of course, in any design one must employ a material with a yield stress greater than the actual stress in  the  material;  the  ratio  of  the yield  stress  of  the  material  to  the  actual  predicted  stress  in  the material is call the factor of  safety.  For example, if a material has a yield stress in tension of 10,000 lbf/in2 and  the  system  is  designed  such  that  the  maximum  tension  is  2,500  lbf/in2 ,  the  factor  of safety for this particular design is (10,000 lbf/in2/2,500 lbf/in2) = 4, at least in tension.

Stresses and strains

Stresses and strains

As a follow-on to the discussion of statics we need to consider whether a material subject to a given set of forces will break and if not, how much will it bend?  To determine this, the first step is to compute the stress in the material. There are two flavors of stress, the normal stress which is the stress in the direction perpendicular to an imaginary plane in the material, and the shear stress which is the stress in the direction parallel to that same imaginary plane. Of course, this imaginary plane could be in any direction, so the magnitude of the normal and shear stresses depends strongly on the choice of said imaginary plane. How should one choose said plane and what is the relationship between normal and shear stresses? We’ll discuss that shortly, but first we’ll individually define normal then shear stress.

 

          

where  F  is  the  force  (either  tension  or  compression)  acting  perpendicular  to  an  imaginary  plane surface passing through a piece of material and A is the cross section area. It is called “normal” not in the sense of being “typical” or “standard” but in the sense of being perpendicular or orthogonal to the cross-section of the material. Stress is defined as positive if the material is in tension (i.e. the material  is being  pulled  apart)  and  negative  if  the  material  is  in  compression (i.e. being  squeezed together).  From the definition it is clear that stress has units of force/area, i.e. the same as pressure. The units are typically N/m2 or lbf/in2. Often the unit of “kips” (kilopounds per square inch = 1000 lbf/in2) is used to report stress.

In  order  to  characterize  the  deformation  of  a  material  in  response  to  stress  we  define  another property  called  strain  (ε) which is  the  fractional  amount  of  elongation  (increase  in  length)  or contraction (decrease  in  length) in  a  material  caused  by  a  stress.   For  example,  if  under  a  given amount of tensile stress, a steel bar stretches from a length (L) of 1.00 inch to 1.01 inch (a change in length, ΔL, of 0.01 inch) the strain = (1.0 – 1.00)/1.00 = 0.01. In other words, 

       

For most materials (other than gooey ones, i.e. Silly Putty™, Play-Doh™, …) the amount of strain before failure is relatively small (i.e. less that 0.1, meaning that the material deforms less than 10% before failing.)

An elastic material has a linear relationship between stress and strain, i.e. 

        

where E is called the elastic modulus, i.e. the slope of the plot of σ vs. ε in the elastic region shown in Figure 10. Note that since ε is dimensionless, E also has units of force per unit area.

The strength of a material is generally reported in terms of the maximum stress it can withstand. For  a  sufficiently  small  stress,  materials  return  to  their  original  length  or  shape  after  the  stress  is removed. The smallest stress for which the material does not return to its original length or shape after the stress is removed is called the yield stress (σ yield). Beyond this stress, generally the slope of the σ vs. ε plot generally (but not always) becomes smaller. There is often an increase in slope as ε is increased  still  further,  up  to  a  maximum σ called  the  “ultimate  stress”,  beyond  which σ actually decreases as ε increases, leading finally to fracture (breakage) of the material at which point it can no longer  hold  any  stress.  A  material’s  yield  stress  may  be  (and  usually  is)  different  in  tension, compression and shear.

Note that we can write Equation 20 in the form F/A = (ΔL/L)E or F = (EA/L)(ΔL), which looks just like the force on a linear spring, F = kx, with k = EA/L.  (One might wonder what happened to the – sign, that is, isn’t F = -kx? Stress is usually defined as positive in tension where as for the spring  F  is  defined  as  positive  in  compression.)   So  E  and  the  material  dimensions  A  and  L determine its “spring constant.”  Figure 10 shows examples of stress vs. strain (σ vs. ε) relationships for different materials.  A ductile material such as steel will yield significantly before fracture whereas a brittle material such as a ceramic or concrete will fail without significant yielding, that is, the σ vs. ε curve is nearly linear up to the failure point. This doesn’t mean that ceramics are necessary weak, in fact they may have higher E than ductile materials, but they are unforgiving to over-stressing (really, over-straining.)

E  and  yield  or  ultimate  stress  have  the  same  units  (Pa  or  lbf/in2)  but  there  is  no  particular relationship between E and yield or ultimate stress. Materials can be hard (high E) but break easily (low yield  or  ultimate  stress)  or  vice  versa. 

      

    

direction stress is applied relative to the material. Many engineering materials are anisotropic, i.e. they are not isotropic. A typical example of such materials is graphite-epoxy composites composed of fibers of graphitic carbon (which have very high yield stress in the plane of the graphite sheets, and low yield stress in the direction perpendicular to this plane) that are bonded to an epoxy polymer, which has relatively low yield stress in tension but high yield stress in compression and shear. The result is a material that has very high stress for its weight. The Boeing 787 uses composites for most of  the  structure;  this  has  the  advantage  of  high ratio  of  yield  stress to  weight,  no  possibility  of corrosion, and relative ease of forming into any desired shape.  (One could also say that a much older material, i.e. wood, is also an anisotropic composite material.)

Of course, in any design one must employ a material with a yield stress greater than the actual stress in  the  material;  the  ratio  of  the yield  stress  of  the  material  to  the  actual  predicted  stress  in  the material is call the factor of  safety.  For example, if a material has a yield stress in tension of 10,000 lbf/in2 and  the  system  is  designed  such  that  the  maximum  tension  is  2,500  lbf/in2 ,  the  factor  of safety for this particular design is (10,000 lbf/in2/2,500 lbf/in2) = 4, at least in tension.