Tris Hussey Talks About Audience Measurement

Our 62nd Conversation featured Tris Hussey, an expert on blogging and metrics, or in other words, in audience measurement. Though this could have been a techy conversation, Tris has the ability to explain things in a clear way for non-techies. We were also pleased that Tris was able to show up...he had been snowed in and without power for 4 days!

Our first question was whether or not it really matters to know who is reading your blog, and naturally, the answer was a resounding yes. It's important for any business person to know who you are reaching with your marketing efforts and of course, a business blog is a marketing tool.

Tris considers the most important numbers to watch are the page views and visitors. This will allow you to see trends and figure out what was going on that may create a spike or dip in your numbers. What's the biggest influence on your numbers? Your posts.

There are various measurement tools. Tris recommends Google Analytics and Performancing. We'll be checking those out and we use Sitemeter.

We asked Tris the best way to increase your audience. Guess what he said?

"Post, post, post. Link, link, link."

How do you figure who to link to? Find influential blogs using Technorati's blog search feature to find people who are posting on the subjects you're interested in, see how many people are linking to them. The blogs with the most links are generally considered to have the most authority.

This was a fun Conversation with some great information. The program is 55 minutes. If you missed the call, you can grab the program for only $9.95.

Conversation with Experts is hosted by The Blog Squad: Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff.