Your site is very creative and unique. I wouldn’t change a thing. I love it.

I am an author here, but I seem to have run out of steam tonight and can’t quite string a proper question together!

Referring to your observation about the need for quality posts here to drive readers to your own site, I think I have 2 hurdles when I write here. Not only do readers need to like my work enough to go look at my own site, but before they read anything on my site, they have to like the style of the homepage too, which isnt exactly pitched at the same degree of sensibleness of BAYB.

This HitTail program looks great. I have it installed, but haven’t got any traffic results from it yet. I have installed another traffic links out counter called Crazy Egg. It offers some neat looking statistics too.

Thanks Garry.

A great way to improve your conversion is to identify what people are looking for on your site. Review your analysis programs to see which search phrases you get hits for… Also, a great program that you may want to install is a program called, HitTail. Some times authors don’t choose what to write because the readers will in many cases dictate what they want you to write. Programs like HitTail allow you to discover the things that people are looking for when they access your site. From there you can add more content that is relevant to what your mainstream readers are looking for. It’s a great program and i use it for my sites.

“The benefit you speak of about BAYB is exactly what motivates me to write and write and write some more.”

It is good to see that other people share the same feeling I have. BAYB is a great place to provide bloggers with the highest level of quality writing. I was sold instantly on the site.

“I’ve heard the word “conversion” many times before and even see it in Google Analytics. But how do I know when a conversion has taken place? I surmise seeing my feed subscription increase is one direct way. And certainly the regulars I see on my blog who comment on my posts is another way. But is there something else I’m not using to my advantage to understand completely that I’ve converted someone?”

Mark, the word, “conversion” is used frequently in many type of statistics. An example would be on a car sales lot. The total number of people that were browsing the cars in relation to the number of people who purchased a car would be a typical sales conversion. Years ago when I worked at Lenscrafters they had a little hit meter on their entrance way which recorded the amount of people who came into the store. They would then get a percentage of people who visited in relation to the amount of people who purchased eyeglasses. How one knows if a conversion takes place is determined after the individual established a certain goal for their site. An example would be how many people comment on a post in relation to how many people viewed it. In this example you could easily use Analytics or SiteMeter to record the number of page views each post receives and then divide the number of comments into that number to get a conversion. For me, I use a bunch of different traffic analysis programs. Each program delivers a variety of different statistics. With me being a stats and numbers freak (this was engrained in my brain by the many years I worked at Lenscrafters) I tend to use a mixture of the data delivered from all programs to answer different questions I want to know about my sites. So to answer your question, the only thing I would do in your situation is maybe investigate using multiple traffic analysis programs on your sites. I use Google Analytics, Site Meter, Xtreme Tracking, Awstats and MyBlogLog Stats. From there I can compare each program for consistencies and also get data from one program that isn’t made available on another.

“I use widgets on my blogs. One of those widgets is to show the most recent comments being made which includes the author of the comment and a brief blurb. But I have yet to see a widget for the top commenters though. A plugin, yes, but a widget, no. Is there one you can direct me to?”

I mistakenly used the word widget when really it is a plugin. On my sites I use the plugin called, “Show Top Commentators”. You can download and learn more about this plugin here.

“And for those of you learning about Garry for the first time, do yourself a favor and make him part of your regular web reads. He’s always writing interesting and useful information and is incredibly courteous to his readers!”

Thank you very much for the compliment. This comment kind of goes hand in hand as an example of what I am talking about in the article. Helping my readers and spending time with them to answer their questions is very important. The paradox of being a blogger is so funny. Most bloggers are born writers yet, to blog and be successful doing it, a writer is practically required to be a marketing expert, a programmer, and a site administrator. And in the world we live in, we can’t expect a brain surgeon to fix your car, just as we can’t expect an auto mechanic to repair a computer… yet in the wonderful world of blogging… a creative writer has no choice but to wear all hats. And that simple fact alone is what my site is about. Helping people successfully extract the the information out of their brains onto this e-paper we call blogs and most importantly showing them how to gain the respect and trust from readers who stumble upon their sites. The tips and advise I offer bloggers is like no other. I encourage people to be creative, I hope to spark ideas in my readers generated from my own ideas. There is a handful of experts out there and as Technorati quotes, 83.5 millions blogs out in the blogosphere. Most of which are all desperate for attention… and my site shows them how to get it.