There is much more to being a blogger than writing a new blog everyday or sharing it across social media. There's a lot more planning and organization involved in that.

It's making sure you're not just sharing your own posts but others as well. It's keeping an editorial calendar, keeping files on hand, media kits and constantly brainstorming. It's taking a thousand photos to get the right one, blog conferences and friends.

There is a lot more to blogging than just writing a draft. I've realized that recently and I kind of love it. I love how there is a whole other side to blogging that I'm coming in touch with.

One of the best and most important tools I've learned about blogging is the importance of analytics. It wasn't until a few months ago when I started to pay a little more attention to my blog analytics and how many page views and monthly visitors I was wracking up.

That stuff was always important to me but I just started to see how freaking cool it was!!

I think it's the coolest thing to be able to see who is looking at your posts, what time they read them and where their located. Seeing the "real time" users is sick--being able to know that at that very moment someone is reading your blog.

Maybe I'm just a complete tech junkie and nerd but I think tracking your analytics is pretty cool but essentially, it's one of the most vital parts of taking your blog to the next level.

Knowing how many people visit your blog each day, how long they stay active and how many pages they view is really important. It's important to your audience, to brands and companies you want to work with, and to you as an owner.

Having a better understanding of analytics will help you become a better blogger.

Analytics is confusing, don't get me wrong. I'm by no means an expert but after playing around with it, I've become a little more knowledgable and it makes things a little easier.

Google Analytics is the platform I use and most bloggers I've spoken with use this one as well. It's easy to hook up to your blog if you have Blogger and a Gmail account. I've been playing around with this baby really well for the past few weeks but have had it installed for months.

Google Analytics as a whole is really useful and beneficial, once you get the hang of it. There are definitely some highlights that I think are the most useful to bloggers who are just starting out or want to take their blog to the next level.

1. Audience Overview: This is probably the most basic part of Google Analytics and the part that is most simple to understand. Basically it shows your page views and other statistics for any given date. Initially it'll start off as a monthly view but you could alter it for any day.

Here it tells you your page views which is how many times your blog was viewed; users, which is how many physical people clicked on your blog, and sessions, which is the period of time a user was actively engaged in your blog.

Aside from those statistics, it's also reported how many pages were viewed during a session, how long the average session lasted, locations and the number of new and returning visitors. 

I don't think I have my analytics installed correctly because it won't let me view the next categories such as age, gender, and basic demographics such as that.

2. Behavior: Behavior is useful for a variety of reasons; it shows you the flow of your readers (what pages they went to first, second, third) which is something I discovered while researching this blog post. Another great, useful part of 'behavior' is that you can see which pages and posts were most viewed during a certain period. 

It also shows how long it takes your site to load (woah, eyeopener) which can help you in the long run.

3. Technology: (Under Audience) This is pretty straight forward and simple. It shows you which browsers and operating systems people are viewing your blog under. I think this is super cool #nerdalert

4. Acquisition: This might be the most important part of analytics in my opinion. This shows how readers get to your site, whether it was a direct search, social media or a referral. It also shows which keywords they used to find your site(the coolest part). This is the most important to me because it's something you can control (sort of).

It breaks these different platforms down to really give you an inside look as to where your most traffic is coming from, showing which areas are pretty good and where you need improvement.

Like I said before, there are a lot of parts that don't work for me, for some strange reason (I need to look into that). Those parts that don't work would be really useful because you'll know exactly who you're targeting and whose reading.

I'm going to do another post on how to apply all these useful analytic tips because this post will be super long and confusing if I put it all together.

These definitely aren't the only parts of Google Analytics but the parts I focus on and find the most useful. Like I said, I'll do another post on how to apply all of this information but I hoped this helped or you found it interesting!!

Do you fellow bloggers have any tips and tricks when it comes to analytics? Please tell me in the comments !!

I am no blogging expert by any means. It has been a little over two years since I started Royally Pink, I've met and spoken with countless bloggers, and have made trials and tribulations on my own. Through all of this, I've learned a few things and have definitely become more knowledgable...still though, no expert.

Blogging isn't easy, even though it looks that way. Trust me, before I started I thought it was simple. All you do is write, right? No, that's definitely not what it all entails. Good blog designs, keeping up a social media presence, contacting brands, responding to emails, building a following, keeping your creative juices flowing, finding the time and motivation to open up a blog post, keeping track of your networks, passwords, expenses, ads...my goodness the list goes on and on!

Of course, the bigger your blog and the bigger your following, the more difficult these tasks become. I find the hardest part for me is definitely keeping myself organized and coming up with new ideas to write about.

I'm a Type A, organizational freak but when it comes to my blog, there are so many ways to keep yourself together and it's hard to figure out what's better. Do you go with a binder, a notebook, a planner, an online tracker, Google calendar, printable calendars, documents, pdfs--what is the right fit?

I used to be paper, paper, paper but over the past few weeks, I've recognized the easiness of keeping everything blog related on the computer. Because of this, I've come to the conclusion that there are a lot of wonderful apps for bloggers to utilize. 

I've seen a lot of other bloggers write up round up posts like this but some of those bloggers are super big and this is their full time job.

These apps that I've been using are more relatable, easier to use and makes sense for smaller, every day bloggers like myself.

1. Google Calendar:  This is both an app in the app store and also accessible on your laptop, which makes for easy use and access. I use Google Calendar as my editorial calendar and ONLY my editorial calendar. I used to keep an editorial calendar in my Lilly planner but it was just too complicated and then I tried writing it down in a notepad but this is much easier. I'm able to quickly and neatly change it if things go astray and it's so much nicer to see what I have planned all in one place. It makes it a lot easier to plan ahead too!

2. Evernote: This is heaven sent and I don't know how I lasted so long without it. I've had Evernote for a while but never used it for my blog; the updated version seemed complicated and I didn't want to bother with it but after reading this blog post on how to properly use Evernote, my life was changed. I created a 'Royally Pink' notebook and just have so many notes with random ideas, it's like an actual notebook but so much neater and more organized. I have a running list of ideas, outlines of blog posts, companies to email, etc. I have it installed on my computer, iPhone and iPad so it syncs automatically. There are so many other ways to use Evernote, I haven't nearly made a dent. 

3. Eventbrite: This is an app I discovered last summer and it's not just for bloggers. This is an app that  takes your location and shows you all the events and conferences that are around you. It's great for networking and niche events that could be helpful to your blog. The best part is that they offer free events and you could buy your tickets right on the app, keeping them in the "My Tickets" section or you could transfer them to your Passbook. It's so convenient and wonderful. 

4. HootSuite: This is an app that can get tricky while just starting out but once you understand how it works, you'll adore it. I recently started playing around with it and it's a lot easier than I once thought. HootSuite is an app/website (once again access on a laptop and your phone) that streams all your social media accounts on one screen, making it easy to go back and forth between each. The best part and the most useful to bloggers? You can schedule out your social media posts weeks in advance. If you want to tweet about a blog post more than once over the course of a week, you can schedule them out and drive more traffic to your site. So helpful and useful!

5. 2Days: This is an app that I don't only use for my blog but also for everyday life. It's a To Do list but it has little notifications that tell you how many things you have listed so the red notification bothers you and you want to get rid of them. It's so much better than any other To Do list app I've tried, I'm obsessed. 

Honorable mentions: Blogger, Facebook Pages Manager, Klout, and Paypal

What are your favorite apps for bloggers? Tell me in the comments!!