This guest post is by Josh Klein of Digital Strategy with Josh Klein.

You had an idea for a blog. You developed a smart blog strategy. You wrote a compelling about me page. You learned how bloggers make money, and you even followed some examples of how Darren makes money with his blogs. Then you picked up a “how to” guide, like the excellent free ebook from Michael Martine, “How to Start a Business Blog.”

And then you blog, and you promote, and you make some cash on the side. You’re up and running! But how do you know you’re succeeding? How do you know you’re heading in the right direction, and simple patience and dedication will turn your hobby into a profession? When do you know if you’re a problogger?

Amateurs can make choices based on their raw enjoyment, their traffic numbers, their comments, and their links, but professionals need to measure their return on investment (ROI). Probloggers need to pay their rent. But you’re not cashing big checks yet, and you still need a way to see if you’re on the right track.

I want to tell you about four things you can do, right now, to understand your business goals for blogging and test whether or not you’re achieving them. Because the truth is your follower count and your page views won’t pay your rent.

1. Measure your influence

Whether you’re selling your own product, promoting affiliates, offering a service, or advertising, your ability to make money is dependent on your ability to successful convey to your audience the value you offer them in such a way that they take action. Ideally, you’d measure your actual profits as a way to see if you’re succeeding, but you may have just started to get traction. There are other ways to test your influence.

Followers—be they RSS subscribers, Twitter followers, Facebook friends, or something else—are not a great way to measure your influence, at least not at face value. The reason for this is that the volume—reach, in marketing-speak—is less relevant than the quality of these relationships. You could message a million people, but if none of them were the right people, you’d be done for.

PostRank is a great service to measure influence in an effective way. Not only will it track the views your blogging gets, it will follow “social events” as they happen across the web, as people discuss and share your posts. This is the kind of activity that really demonstrates your growing influence, and as a practical matter, you can use it to follow up directly with the people that have “pre-qualified” themselves as interested in what you have to say by sharing your posts.

Instead of tracking how many people follow your blog, you can track—and take action based on—the people actually doing something with your blog that brings them closer to becoming customers. If your posts are spreading beyond the initial push you give them, you’re starting to make things happen.

2. Solicit and test feedback

When you ask your audience something, do they answer? It’s easy to forget, since blogging is a broadcast medium (you write, others read), that comments and emails are from real people who took a real chunk out of their day to not only pay attention to you, but to give you something in return. Compared to your average fly-by reader, make sure you cherish these people, and try to take to put their interest to good use.

When your audience gets in touch with you, don’t simply thank them and send them on their way. Instead, try to solicit their opinions on the direction you should be taking things, test their feedback on the blog, and build a lasting relationship with them.

There is a bigger difference between zero true fans and one true fan than there is between one true fan and 1000 customers. Again, it’s important to emphasize “true fan” rather than “follower” here, because these are people that go out of their way to engage with you.

If you’re gaining and interacting with true fans, you’re starting to make things happen.

3. Understand the sales funnel

A sale is good news, no matter how you look at it. But some sales are better than others. How so?

If you make some money, but don’t know exactly how it happened, you’re not likely to repeat the process. That old adage applies here: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life.”

A problogger has a system—a repeatable methodology of reaching sales—that makes him or her a pro. There are many different systems, and you’ll ultimately have to try a few and find what works for you, but the point that you need one can’t be overemphasized. Even a single sale is a monumental achievement if it goes according to a preconceived plan.

You don’t need to write down a lengthy business plan, just to understand the funnel. For instance, “I’m going to sell a course. I’ll promote this course through a sales page, which is driven to repeatedly throughout a free ebook, which I will distribute by guest posting on blogs in my niche and offering as a download.” This certainly could benefit from more detail, but the outline is there. Then you can measure each step of the process; if 10,000 people read your guest posts, about 5,000 download your ebook, but only ten click through to the sales page … well, maybe you need to change the way your ebook promotes your sales page.

Once you have a system, and it succeeds once, you have all the proof you need that it is possible. Your next step is to make it better. Remember that the first sale—at least, the first measurable sale—is the hardest to make. After that, it’s just incremental improvement.

4. Stay true to your one goal

You were smart enough to think strategically about blogging when you first laid out your plans for world domination, but how often do you get mired down in the details, losing sight of your original goals? I’ll be the first to admit that opening Google Analytics to see whether yesterday’s post got as many views as the one from the day before is an addiction. But probloggers know that information is only useful insofar as you can actually take action based on it.

Here’s a novel suggestion: try to boil down your goals to one sentence, maybe a paragraph if necessary. Blow it up into big letters and print it out on a piece of paper, then tape it somewhere that is within your line of sight as you work.

As you write and promote your blog, grow your influence, interact with fans and partners, and watch your sales, always look back to this goal and ask yourself, “is what I’m doing right now getting me there?” You goals can change—they almost certainly will—but you can’t get get “there” if you don’t know where “there” is.

If you do this, all that time you spend replying on Twitter or reading other blogs will start to take on a new dimension. You’ll start to question the value. These activities may very well turn out to be worth pursuing, but at least you’ll have made it an active choice based on our strategic goals.

Over time, what you’ll find is that you naturally gravitate towards the things that matter, and as importantly, you’ll understand why those things matter. This is how you know you’re succeeding, even before the paycheck arrives in the mail—you know you’re working towards a goal you care about.

How do you measure your success? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Josh Klein is a marketing consultant with experience working with major brands on Madison Avenue and small businesses around the country. He writes about marketing and business in general at his blog, Digital Strategy with Josh Klein.

Looking towards the future of Google Analytics

Thursday, March 17, 2011 | 12:16 AM

Labels: Announcements, New Google Analytics

Today at the Google Analytics User Conference in San Francisco, we shared a look at a new version of Google Analytics. We’ve also reached out to a small group of Analytics users to participate in the testing. If you’re part of this group you’ll see a link to the new version in your Analytics account. We’re starting small, and we’ll gradually roll the new version out to everyone.

Our goals for the new version are to make it easier and faster to get to the data you want and to enhance the Google Analytics platform to bring you major new functionality. Many of the changes in the new version are the result of your feedback. For example, you can now view multiple advanced segments without needing to also use All Visits. You’ll find some of the other most requested features like multiple dashboards in the new version as well.

We’ll be sharing many more details about what’s new along the way with a new series on the blog focused exclusively on the new Analytics. In the meantime, if you want to be considered for the test, visit the beta sign-up page. Using the new version won’t change how Google Analytics reports your website traffic, and you can continue to use the current version while testing the new Analytics.

As you start using the new Google Analytics, you should also check out the updated Google Analytics Help Center and the Report Finder, which will show you where to find your favorite reports in the new version. We’ve also set up a new category in the Help Forum where you can ask questions and discuss the new version.

This release wouldn’t have been possible without your feedback. Please continue to send us your feedback as you start using the new interface.

Happy analyzing!

UPDATE: 3/17/11 1:40pm PST, we fixed issue that prevented us from collecting sign-ups. If you signed-up before 1:40pm PST, please sign-up again: beta sign-up page.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Google Analytics Team

Email Post

  

Question No. 1: I made an offer for a house that was a short sale. After my offer was accepted and the contract had been sent to escrow, I noticed the house still listed as “active” on the multiple listing service. The listing agent claimed that he kept receiving inquiries on the property, and used that to push me to remove inspection and loan contingencies. He said he would only mark the home “pending” once I had removed contingencies.

Is it possible for the seller to accept a second buyer’s offer after accepting mine (even if the later offer comes with a higher price? Don’t they need me to sign a release before they do that?

If they do accept another offer and go with the second offer, do I have any legal right for compensation? (I believe this would be a “breach of contract” case, but can you confirm it?) –Mike

Question No. 2: The broker on a short-sale house has not acknowledged my offer and will not sign the papers. He says he wants to wait and see if the first offer goes through first. Isn’t this an unlawful way of doing things? I do not know if I am a backup buyer or just left out in the cold. Is there anyone I can contact regarding this unethical way of doing things? –Charles

A: Talk about two sides of the same coin! One of you is in contract on a short sale and concerned about whether a second, higher offer could usurp their position. The other is trying to usurp a first-position contract on a short sale. A little education about this area of the short-sale realm will answer both your questions.

Short sales differ from “regular” sales in that a short-seller is selling a home at a net price (after the seller’s closing costs) below what the seller owes on the home. As a result, all mortgage lenders and holders of liens on the property must approve the sale before it can take place.

Procedurally, what happens is a buyer makes an offer on the property and the seller accepts that offer and generally requires that the buyer agree to a short-sale addendum, which significantly alters the normal flow of the contract, as well as the legal rights and obligations of both parties — mostly in order to work in the fact that there’s at least one extra party to the contract besides the signatories who must sign off before the deal can be done.

In some cases, the buyer must sign the standard short-sale addendum used by the agents in the area and an addendum required to be signed by the bank(s) involved on the seller’s side, who will not consider the short-sale application without the document being signed.

Ultimately, the short-sale addenda prevents the contract from being finalized so as to prohibit the seller from considering or accepting other offers until after the bank(s) and other lien holder(s), if any, agree to the terms of the transaction.

That is, when you are a short-sale buyer, you are notified upfront that the seller does not have the power to create a binding contract — not unless and until the bank(s) and lien holder(s) sign off on the price and other terms of your offer, including your qualifications.

The short-sale addenda — both the boilerplate forms brokers and agents use and the bank versions — add in the banks’ and lien holders’ approval as a required condition of the contract. Mike, normally, the buyer’s contingency periods for inspection and loan don’t even begin running until after the bank(s) involved have approved the sale.

While it is strange that the listing agent would pressure you to remove contingencies so soon in a short-sale situation, it is also highly possible that he was waiting to collect additional offers or waiting to make sure that you were actually able to do the transaction as early as possible in the sale.

It sounds like you are without your own broker or agent in the transaction — if you were, the chances you would have been pressured into prematurely paying for inspections and appraisals, etc., would have been far, far reduced.

In a “regular” non-short sale, the seller cannot kick a buyer out of place in preference of a later, higher offer once the property is in contract, though in a short sale the bank may actually require that the seller submit any and all offers to purchase the property that are received prior to the bank green-lighting the transaction, so that the bank can take the highest offer and minimize its losses.

Mike, the bottom line for you is that, strictly because your transaction is a short sale, it is highly possible that the seller may retain the legal right to boot your offer out of first place for a higher offer up until the point that the bank approves your offer.

However, Charles, unless their mortgage lender requires them to, it is not the case that the seller is obligated to do anything with your backup/second-in-time offer — neither is the listing agent’s behavior unethical, in your situation, as the agent is being upfront and honest with you about the seller already being in contract.

For both of you, I’ll advise you as I advise any and every buyer in a short-sale situation: Do not count your chickens until the bank approves your contract! That is, until the bank has approved your offer, do not spend money on an appraisal, do not spend money on inspections, and do not stop looking for a home.

If you do, you do so at your own risk — the risk of losing the cash you’ve spent if the bank does not approve your offer for any reason.

The seller — to answer your second question, Mike — does not owe you any compensation for breach of contract, unless you were already notified that the bank had already approved your offer.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of “The Savvy Woman’s Homebuying Handbook” and “Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions.” Tara is also the Consumer Ambassador and Educator for real estate listings search site Trulia.com. Ask her a real estate question online or visit her website, www.rethinkrealestate.com.