Google Analytics - Incoming Links
This comes in very handy when looking to help “Promote Your Promotions”. If a site is sending you traffic, you want to know about it and identify any ways you could help increase that traffic… even if it just means digging the story or submitting it to stumbleupon.
Step 1: In the left hand navigation, click on “Traffic Sources” and “Referring Sites”
Step 1: Now you will get a list of sites that Analytics has tracked sending traffic to your site. This informations is extremely valuable, no only does it show you the sites you have submitted links to that are sending you traffic but it also shows you all the other sites that you did not expect to get traffic from 
Step 2: Click on the drop down box at the bottom of your screen that says “Show Rows” and select 500. This will now display all your sources on one screen.
Step 3: Do NOT click on the little icon beside the listed site, this will take you to the root domain of the site and not to the actual page that sent the traffic. Instead click the actual blue underlined link.
Step 4: You will now have a list of all the pages on that site that have referred traffic to your site, you will want to click on them and you will come to a new page that has the link “Visit the referring link”, you will want to click on this.
Purpose: With this information you will want to look for three different things.
- The first is the sites that you have promoted, you will want to see which of these sites have sent you traffic and which ones have not. You can then tweak your promotions to exclude the sites that are not sending traffic and you can test new sites.
- The second thing is for sites that sending traffic and you were unaware of. You want to look at these sites and see how you can improve the traffic they are sending. Perhaps it is a blog that posted a comment about your site. Look and see and then make a plan of how to help them send more traffic to your site.
- The third thing is to look for potential JV partners. If someone has published your content or linked to you, perhaps they will let you submit more content to their site. The next time you do a promotion, you can then send them an article to publish on their site as well.
Hope you liked this post :), if so let me hear about it… if not keep it to yourself and then make up a story of how you liked it and post that comment instead!
Part 1: Google Analytics - Installing
Part 2: Google Analytics - Keywords
Part 3: Google Analytics - Incoming Links
Part 4: Google Analytics - Outgoing Traffic
Part 5: Google Analytics - Content
Part 6: Google Analytics - Tracking with JavaScript Events
Part 7: Google Analytics - Creating Goals
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Great info Cows! (<< Feels weird knowing its plural!) Will still have to wait about another week before i can start to make proper use of the analytics but i have your posts book marked for that day.
Roll on next week!
The Dudes last blog post..The Dude Game - Week 4
Great stuff. Please keep it coming!
Woot! I figured out who all three are! But I’m not telling! Neener-neener-neener!
Urrgghh..!! Can’t wait till tomorrow..
Can’t wait to know the voice behind JCow..
Thanks for the stuffs..
Moolahkings last blog post..Google Adwords Ads Now Free?
Jason Potash…what WILL you think of next!
you obviously did not read the second clue
Ah, Kim! You’re not supposed to guess out loud!
lol I did know that, am i stupid or what? And i was searching for that few times…
Make Money Talkss last blog post..List of quality webmaster freebies - part 4/5 (Free Templates)
Oh snap! You just sent me an email telling me you’ve been writing under a pen name! I didn’t put two and two together until that hint! I’m on your mailing list……
What the crap man! Lol….nice…I still don’t know the others though…
Okay, now I can actually read the article for today
JK Swopess last blog post..3 Reasons multitasking sucks for you. Your divided attention.
Please look at the second clue
* 1 Voice of JC (Me) –> There is a dog out front
You are close but not exactly
Who could you guys be… Frankly, I don’t get those clues at all..
Ralphs last blog post..Free, Easy, Efficient Way To Get Visitors
Great article, I like to see who sends me traffic and then check it out, never thought of checking for sites I promote….
Hmmmm…do I get any traffic from JohnCow.com….let me see
JK Swopess last blog post..3 Reasons multitasking sucks for you. Your divided attention.
About this actual series of posts however, the Google Analytics series. This is definitely going to be useful to alot of people. I for one check up on my stats from Google every day, and even though I glance at the keywords and incoming / outgoing links, etc, etc, I don’t really know what to do with that information.
Ralphs last blog post..Free, Easy, Efficient Way To Get Visitors
I know who all three are for certain. All it took was a little bit of smart snooping around Google.
By the way, I love Analytics! I’m still a bit of a noob to using it. I can figure out where my traffic is coming from, the keywords used, etc. But I really have no clue about the advanced features.
So who owns this last entity you put together…Jason Katzenbaby?
And here I got four emails today from Jason Potash with that company name above his wittle head like he owned the entity.
Jason “An Impure Form Of Potassium Carbonate” Potash - Jason “Dog Is Out Front” but Katzenback - Marc Quarles
Aww, you people don’t play fair. I guess in private. You weren’t supposed to say it in public yet.
The Referring Sites is a great way to know where your traffic comes from, especially if you take advantage and increase the respective traffic, either by, let’s say commenting if it’s a forum or a blog, or by trackback-ing a blog, or even writing an article stating the referring sites.
It’s something about Bacon, right?
Chips last blog post..Response Times And Deadlines
Is Potash a name?
This is a great tip - a few months ago I did this and found a bunch of traffic was coming to my site from Yahoo Answers. I t was because someone I didn’t know asked a question and the “best answer” referred to a post on my blog with a link.
Well once I found that out I gave as much link juice and traffic to that answer and the traffic is still coming to me everyday from that one page. It even ranks in the top 5 for my chosen keyword for that post. Beautiful!
Chriss last blog post..Secrets To Maximizing Your Paid Survey Income
excellent example
“It even ranks in the top 5 for my chosen keyword for that post.” Of course it does. Yahoo Answers has authority that reaches into the clouds.
Ranked Hards last blog post..Jason Calacanis - SEO Has No Future
While i agree with you, that could be said of a lot of sites but doing extra promotions to those pages still help.
Traffic, Traffic, Traffic. Can’t live without it. Pointing links at the pages that are linking to you is always a worthwhile endeavor. This can be accomplished easily with free bulk social bookmarking tools.
Ranked Hards last blog post..Jason Calacanis - SEO Has No Future
Exactly… in fact onlywire is perfect for this.
Ranked Hard, you have a fantastic blog… the comics are excellent… I will be checking you out more often (well..uhmm.. i mean your blog, not you specifically).
Ha, thanks Cowman. Feel free to ping us with some ideas or write a “guest comic.”
Ranked Hards last blog post..Your Link Here
Thanks John Cow, I never knew how to do this until now…
Some really good info on the comments here too, thanks people!
The Dudes last blog post..The Dude Game - Week 4
It is always good to get tips for someone that knows. I have started reading your ebook and it has been a great read so far. I started using google analytics about 6 months ago and it has help my site marketing alot. Thanks for the tip that you have posted. There are other free analysis website out their, do you recommend any of them?
I have onlyjust discovered John Cow/Cow’s. Looks like a came at a good time. Great tip for a fairly newbie like me. Keep them coming I am going to have a good browse around and see what else I can pick up.
[...] If you are new here then you will want to CLICK HERE to enter to WIN an LCD TV, Ipod Touch, Flip Mino and More!This is continued from the previous post Google Analytics Incoming Links [...]
[...] 1: Google Analytics - Keywords Part 2: Google Analytics - Incoming Links Part 3: Google Analytics - Outgoing Traffic Share and [...]
[...] 1: Google Analytics - Keywords Part 2: Google Analytics - Incoming Links Part 3: Google Analytics - Outgoing Traffic Part 4: Google Analytics - Content Share and [...]
This is good stuff. I can’t believe I never thought about this myself. I was working on a client in the organic skin care industry, and they have lots of good stuff written about them in newspapers and blogs. All of these links were naturally built, because they are pretty big in the niche. Yet none of these pages send much traffic. When I read your post, I remembered that one of them is on a very Powerful newspaper site, I am thinking I can build some links that that post, and get it to rank on its own. Maybe even link it from the some of the pages on my client’s site. Do you think that is a good idea? or should I just let that be a one way link for the client?
Are they paying you for traffic, backlinks or a combination?
If they want traffic or a combination, then YES it sounds like a good plan to me
[...] 1: Google Analytics - Installing Part 2: Google Analytics - Keywords Part 3: Google Analytics - Incoming Links Part 4: Google Analytics - Outgoing Traffic Part 5: Google Analytics - Content Part 6: Google [...]
[...] 1: Google Analytics - Installing Part 2: Google Analytics - Keywords Part 3: Google Analytics - Incoming Links Part 4: Google Analytics - Outgoing Traffic Part 5: Google Analytics - Content Part 6: Google [...]
They are paying me for strictly organic ranking results. So my job is to show them how well their site ranks in the SERPs. But over the years of working together we have become friends, so bottom line here is traffic for them which is going to convert into sales, and I am willing to do any white hat trick that is available and in my arsenal.
[...] 1: Google Analytics - Installing Part 2: Google Analytics - Keywords Part 3: Google Analytics - Incoming Links Part 4: Google Analytics - Outgoing traffic Part 5: Google Analytics - Content Part 6: Google [...]
Jason Potash…what WILL you think of next!