#*scrolling through a moots page to find something*

[spicyraeman]

I should start a count of how many shadowheart stans I can get blocked by lmao

[kazutora-kurokawa]

Masturfesting w/ Mikey

♡ NSFW, fem reader, masturbation + manifesting, delusion, established friendship, panty stealing, perv!Mikey, college au ♡

note: my beautiful moot @i-literally-cant-with-this gave me this little idea 🩷 I started at 2am and finished around 3, its 6:30 right now so yeah lol I need some rest

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You and Mikey had always been close growing up, and that didn't change one bit when you two got to college. Of course he was still out partying and fighting with his friends, those things, along with your presence, were the only things he kept consistent. But a lot of things changed, he started becoming more aware of himself, of his feelings towards you, and of his place in your life. He knew he wanted a relationship with you, but wasn't sure how to approach you. So he did what he thought was best and started doing some research.

He discovered a lot of romance coaches, wikiHow articles and unhelpful stuff like that, but then he struck what he thought was a gold mine. He discovered the spiritual side of love, specifically types of love potions and spells. He was never one to believe in magic but it couldn't hurt to try. The one that caught his eye? Masturfesting. It was so disgustingly delusional, it just had to work. And so, he started a routine. Everytime he was hard, he'd go on your social media pages, scroll through, and find a picture he could get off to. He'd start off slow, savoring the moment and imagining your pretty hands wrapped around his dick. He'd finish pretty quickly, staining his phone and the picture of you on the screen with gooey strings of cum.

This became a daily occurrence for him, but as of late he felt like it wasn't working. He needed to go further, to do something more…risky. So he walked to your dorm after class, under the false pretenses of having a study session. You two were in your room laying on a pile of pillows on the floor, flipping through textbooks, when suddenly you had to use the bathroom. You left the room, giving Mikey the chance to take his masturfesting to the next level. He rooted around in your dirty laundry, stealing a pair of your panties and pocketing them for himself. You came out of the bathroom and were none the wiser.

After the study session was over he went back to his dorm, rushing to the bathroom to make use of your panties. The soft material felt like heaven wrapped around him, and he couldn't help but imagine thrusting into your pretty pussy instead of his hand. The way they felt, the way they looked, the way they smelled, everything turned him on and made him even more determined to have you for himself. He fully believed that his disgusting actions would result in you unknowingly falling head over heels for him, and maybe it would…or maybe he's just delusional as all hell. Either way he's not gonna stop, not anytime soon, not until he's sure you'll want him as much as he wants you.

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Taglist

@arlerts-angel @trevengersprincess @giugiette @katkusuo @happy-trenchcoated-impala @drunkcheesecake @darkstarlight82 @reiners-milkbiddies

[noodle-is-unstable]

Saying this on anon because I'm a coward, but. I've been floating around on your page and not only are your smaus my personal favourite, but recently I've been finding myself visiting this blog often.

Now, my blog isn't obvious that I'm an adult, but I will tell you that I am one and have been one for a bit. With my favourite colour being a blinding blue, I will admit that it does have a very childish quality to it. Despite that, however, I've never added my age to my blog since I'd rather not have that be public information (I assume because of all the PSAs I grew up on about not putting information out there about yourself on the Internet).

Now imagine the shock when I scrolled to the post about the all-seeing noodle and suddenly it setting in that not only is there a high chance you may have seen me flitting about in the notifications, that you may look at my blog and see me as a child and block me on sight if I follow you, like I was wanting to.

I then, in a little bit of a panic, decided to add a clause to my blog description, stating that I am 18+, just that I am uncomfortable having my age visible (would I still be considered an ageless blog at that point?). I think I'll hold off from following for a bit, but if you recognise me in the notifications due to the sparse description of myself I've given, you can decide on what judgement you'll give me. My telling you of this was meant to be humorous, but I'd understand if it wasn't for you.

Whoop okay that's a lot lol. I'm pretty sure I know who this is but I'll leave you to your anonymity

So, let me explain how I decide to block people or not, because I don't actually block ageless blogs often (controversial I know, clutch your pearls lol)

Realistically I don't have the time to go through every like I get, so unless something about your profile makes me notice you or you pop up a lot, I'm not going to notice. Now if you reblog I'm very likely to notice and scan your profile. If you comment (or send in a non anon ask) there is a 100% chance I'll look at your page

Obviously if you state you're a minor or an age under 18, I'll block you

If your ageless, unless I'm very busy, there's a low chance I'll let it go and I will stalk your blog. I'll look at who you follow, if there is a minor I will block you. If you reblog a minor, I'll block you, or if you share things that make it obvious you're not an adult, I'll block you. There are probably people that are adults that got blocked, but hey, it's this or every ageless gets the Block Glock

Now is that doing a lot more work for myself than just blocking ageless blogs, yes. Will minors slide through the cracks, yes (and I hope they know they make me extremely uncomfortable by being on my page). However, a lot of my moots are ageless or were. A lot of adults share your sentiments if not wanting to share their age and I don't think they should be punished for this. You shouldn't be punished for wanting to be safe on the internet

Now saying your an adult or 18+ or someone says older than Google (yes I see you too), things like that make my job easier but it isn't always necessary

My main rule is I don't want minors interacting with my work. Don't like it, don't reblog, don't comment, don't follow me. Read it and move along. If they aren't mature enough to follow those simple instructions, they aren't mature enough to read my works, simple as that

So please don't stress out. "Childish" themes doesn't mean anything to me. Nothing is childish, it's something that people enjoy and that's enough for me. Most likely I saw your page, saw nothing that set off warning signs and I let you continue on your way.

Enjoy the content anon, happy you're here 💖

[geuretea]

Hi! Welcome to my blog

Leaving here my tree jskjsjjs

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You can call me Geuretea. I am an amateur artist and I just draw and write for fun, so do not expect much.

My straw page: https://geuretea.straw.page/

I created this blog on February of 2024. I was scrolling through the store and I said: "Tumblr? I've heard about it, i'll try it, might be cool" Indeed, it was. I spent a few weeks liking and scrolling through my dash until I made my first post on March. Since then I've met a lot of amazing and kind people (like you). I absolutely do not regret creating this blog.

____________________________________________

This being said, it wouldn't be a bad idea to show you what you can find on my blog:

My beloved ocs

Traditional drawings and sketches

Digital drawings (I'm trying to get used to it)

Pork Milk

Reblogs from my moots' amazing posts

Random posts about me

____________________________________________

If you want to ask me something, don't even hesitate, I will answer. Also, if you want me to draw something, I will (assuming some standards).

____________________________________________

I think I don't like Tumblr just because it allows me to post my art and see art from others, I think I like it because of the people you meet during the process.

Thanks for visiting!

[quartergoblin]

this got long.

okay. so. im doing this because of nsfw tier and early access. Not everything i make (i wouldnt even say most things, really) is sexually explicit - like the nipples comic. It's more than suggestive, but there wasn't anything to censor in it, so I would pretty firmly categorize it as mature, right?

So for stuff like that I would really rather have it be early access on patreon and then release it in a week or two like I do with my comics. However.

Up until now I assumed that everyone on my patreon was an adult - it's categorized as an adult page and for some reason I thought they only used paypal and venmo which you needed to be 18 to use (which for venmo is no longer even true as of like. june or something.). But I didn't want to put explicit content out there for regular patrons who weren't consenting to seeing it, being in sfw teirs. And as far as I can tell, as soon as a post is no longer pay-walled it's just out there. There's no extra step beyond scroll and boom. Tits and ass in your eyeballs.

Extra problems: patreon shows the first four images of your post right off the bat. That's a lot of censorship buffer and doesn't really solve the issue besides. and 2: i tag nsfw posts as such, but the tagging system is for finding posts, not avoiding them.

/

New stuff i found out after reading the accursed document.

most of the stupid stuff doesnt matter here (they only allow same-species sex? (rip judy hopps + nick wild) but they also seem to allow monster-fucking. while at the same time saying you can't "glorify animal genitals" very confusing. what is the point of anthro and monster porn if they're going to have the same bits as everyone else :/.)

(they also specifically disallow real-life depictions of pretty much everything (with concessions for informative articles and talking about real events by victims) (but they only say this like 3/4th of the way through the thing) which renders a ton of their rules moot because it's already been covered. they are so deep in the weeds. porn censorship is ridiculous.)

But this is the part that does:

Patreon doesn't age verify users, though it claims to only allow 18+ users to subscribe to 18+ accounts. I previously thought this was covered by the restrictions of the payment methods. Not true! You can connect your card directly to patreon and you can get one of those whenever you make a bank account. Most people make a checking account when they get their first job at 16.

So patreon basically goes, as far as I can tell. "are you 18?" and then takes that at face value for users. Which is a problem! Because you and I both know that people lie about that.

I had to give patreon my government ID with my face and address and everything so that I could make stuff as an 18+ account. But any kid who can do simple math can just stroll in and see whatever the fuck they want to see whenever they want to see it. This is insane to me. I am incensed.

/

So let's get back to the issue.

I am going to continue operating in slightly-altered good faith. The people in my nsfw tier have told patreon that they are 18+. They have told me that they are 18+ and are consenting to seeing nsfw content because they are giving me money to see it.

There is actually nothing else I can do short of harassing people online about their birthdays and attempting to internet-stalk them to verify that they aren't lying to me. Which, I feel needs to be said. Is insane person behavior. Not to mention violating and potentially useless. Useless because people can use whatever screen name they want and there is no guarantee that wheehoo123 on patreon is the same person as wheehoo123 on any other social media site. And violating because I have a professional transactional relationship with my patrons. Patreon gives me several avenues of communication between me and my patrons on-site that I can use to talk to them, and I do. There's never going to be a situation where i form a reverse-parasocial relationship with my patrons and try to dm them on instagram to be their friends. If they follow me on other sites and contact me on those other sites (like sending a tumblr ask) then I am going to interact with them like they're a tumblr user. Because they are. Make sense? I would like to stop thinking about this because I am making myself crazy.

BACK TO THE ISSUE.

re: slightly-altered good faith: I now cannot assume that my sfw patrons are adults. This doesnt actually change anything besides making me feel more strongly about how much i do not want them to see the nsfw content. And takes "maybe making a bunch of buffer pages wont be so annoying?" out of the running as a solution.

option 1: I just put a little written note on posts that say when I'm releasing them to the public, but keep them exclusive on patreon for censorship purposes.

why i cannot do that: Patreon automatically counts your exclusive posts and displays that number to entice people to join. Here's what it says on mine.

It's disingenuous and probably also some type of fraud to count all of these would-be "exclusive posts" as actually exclusive. Also if i paid a guy three bucks only to have half his stuff say "yeah it's on twitter now, here's a link" I would be furious. False advertising!

option 2: Do what i did with the extra nipples comic and only release part of it to the public.

why I dont want to do that: It's annoying. It's annoying to you. It's annoying to me. Maybe I am bad at business but I can afford to be bad at business because this is my side hustle. Maybe it will be really profitable one day, but right now it's mostly for fun and to raise extra cash to replace my drawing equipment when it craps out on me. I'm okay with censoring bits, because usually they're not the important part, but I don't like cutting an interaction or story off in the middle. I want y'all to see my art. I like it when people can interact with it. This model blue-balls both of us. Figuratively. Or maybe literally idk you. This is porn.

option 3: there doesn't seem to be one. Harass patreon into fixing their house. Or at least stop pretending like these measures do anything to protect kids and not solely because payment processors demand it.

i just want to show adults this shit i make without making it needlessly complicated. if we're already carding creators at the door, why not do it to 18+ users too when they seek to access explicit content. Everything's already in place and it would be so much easier. Or let me mark specific posts 18+ dammit. That would be ideal, actually.

today in "what in the tarnation" I actually read what the patreon terms of service says about porn. spoiler alert. it is contradictory, needlessly repetitive, and confusing in. how. it actually protects teens like it says it wants to do.

[ushijimacentral]

we're not moots but i hope it's okay to request :)) if it's not okay feel free to ignore this request!!

prompt 10 + kuroo <33

hi rae!

i've been super busy but I wanted to get to this as quickly as possible. here's a little drabble and feel free to request anything else!

and you don't have to be a moot to request stuff

summary: kuroo being a romantic dork

tags/warnings: fem!reader, prompt, study stress, saying “I love you”

wc: 562

a/n: a teensy bit self-indulgent since it’s coming up to exam time. this may or may not be review for my chemistry exam...

You and Me

"Hey," Kuroo said, plopping down next you in the café booth. Looking up from your books, you gave him a quick nod of affirmation and mumbled back.

"Hey,"

He smirked and looked at you as you sat hunched over your school books, desperately trying to learn the material. Your face was wrinkled with concentration and you looked utterly exhausted. Cute. "Is something wrong?" You asked, noticing the smile growing on his face. "I find your dedication to learn admirable." You scoffed. "You mean my desire not to fail midterms." Both of your eyes darted over to the door as you heard the bell ring, only to reveal another customer. "Guess the rest of them aren't here yet." Kuroo stated, scrolling through the study group chat on his phone. Sighing, you returned to your schoolwork, hoping to get a better understanding before the others showed up. 

You didn’t even notice Kuroo was gone until he came back with your drinks. “A drink m’lady?” He offered, doing a small bow. You rolled your eyes before accepting it, feeling the warmth of the drink in your hands. Kuroo’s phone buzzed and he picked it up. “Looks like they can’t make it," you groaned in response. "They were supposed to help me with my chemistry homework." You huffed, ignoring the offended look on Kuroo's face. "Well, since they can't make it, let me be your professor for the afternoon." He offered. "Do you grade on a curve?" He sat next to you in the booth. "Sure why not. Now, let's see what we have here..." He gently pried the book from your stiff hands, flipping through the pages. His hand lightly brushed against yours and you pretended not to notice the light pink on the tip of his ears. Cute.

"Are you struggling with the average atomic mass?" You nodded. "It's completely illogical." He chuckled. "Chemistry and math are always logical my dear." He tapped your hand with a pencil. "It's actually pretty simple. Take the isotope number, the turn the decimal into a percent, and add them." He explained, quickly jotting the formula down onto paper. Suddenly, the problem made sense and you quickly solved three problems. "Those are all right. Good job!" Kuroo congratulated. "Thanks for the help. You should explain everything to me from here on out." You giggled. "Really? Then I have another problem for you to try."

"Bring it."

You peered at the math problem he wrote on your paper.

9x - 7i > 3(3x - 7u)

You quickly solved it and arrived at the answer.

i < 3u

The realization of what he meant dawned on you but you continued to play dumb. "What's this supposed to mean Kuroo? It wasn't in my math book." You glaced over at his quickly reddening face and smirked. "Um, a practice problem?" He muttered. You felt a little sad but shook it off. "Alright then, what's the next-"

"I think I love you."

Now it was your turn to go red. "Really?" He nodded and swallowed. You paused and Kuroo felt his chest get tight. He thought it was all over until you began to laugh. It started off as a small chuckle and morphed into full bodied laughter. Reaching over your pinched his cheek. "You're cute Tetsuro." Handing him your textbook, you whispered in his ear. "Let's make this a study date."

[kitaholic]

What are some tumblr etiquette?! Now I’m worried I’ve been messing up too and coming off as rude

What I'm about to talk is mostly basic interactions within the fandom.

It's pretty much about being respectful when interacting with other people here. I can state like a few scenarios. Like reading the before you follow page and knowing what makes them uncomfortable and what are okay for them to talk about. Although not everything are stated but you'll get the gist of what they want within their blog. You can go from there when initiating conversations. When you look at an 18+ blog you'll encounter "do not interact" informations pretty often (and yet some still disrespects this and proceeds to interact anyway)

Making a story out of a headcanon from someone. chances are they might make it into their own story. Talk to op first if they're fine with someone taking their ideas into a fic. There are some that are fine with it but others gets pissy for stealing their ideas.

If you're following an nsfw blog, assume that they don't want their stories shared elsewhere outside of tumblr. I have done this once due to excitement and wanted people to know about it but i took it down immediately bc author has expressed they don't want it shared. Fics that leave tumblr often invites minor (and discourse) to it.

Reposting of art/plagiarism. If you see an art you wanted to share, it's better to drop a link that will redirect it to the original post than post the art. Most artists do not allow reposts because of art theft. As for plagiarism, just no. Don't do it. You're ugly if you do it. Writers worked hard for it and if you copy it just to get some likes is really shallow. People will not respect you nor will you gain any recognition.

Asking to be moots. Being moots is a natural process. Don't pressure someone into being your moots instead just interact with them more like leaving comments, reblogging their posts, dropping in their ask box to talk, supporting them through commissions if you can. It's how you get notice and gets a follow back. You'll get a follow if people find what you post interesting.

"love bombing" without prior engagement. People really have gotten too comfortable in this site istg xD. You might have seen how people "flirts" and interact like close friends in here. Just because someone did it to others doesn't mean you have the right to do the same thing to them like calling them nicknames (like bitch coz you saw someone did. Even if you say it jokingly/affectionately, it is disrespectful) and saying i love yous out of nowhere. Just slow it down. It's uncomfortable to some tbh. Moots or non-moots there's a process to follow here.

Demanding part 2 for stories. Although you may have commented it without malice, it may come off as demanding especially if you haven't given any feedbacks to the author.

Dragging people on discourse/starting a discourse. Just don't. We're here to simp not look for fight.

If you see someone post something you don't agree to, be mature and scroll away, unfollow or block instead of sending hateful messages. I cannot stress this enough. You curate what you see here.

These are just some that i can think of as of the moment and i just woke up so my head is a bit of a mess so i hope it makes sense. XD

[sketchguk]

Hi, friends! I can honestly say that I’ve been on Tumblr for about 9 years, but only 7 of those months have been spent on this account. Being a part of this fandom means so much to me, and as cheesy as it may be, I’ve never felt so much love from a community like this. I think that I should spread a little love back to everyone through this festive follow forever post in the spirit of the holidays (there’s also a message for my beautiful followers at the very end, so bear with me). Although I may have not spoken to you all personally, you’ve made my experience here amazing!! Whether it’s seeing you on my dash or in my inbox, you’ve all made me smile one way or another!! I’ll admit right now that I’ve sent so many anonymous messages to you all because I’m really shy, haha. Not to mention, I follow so many amazing content creators, gif/gfx makers and fic writers alike, and I want to make you smile as much as you have made me!! Y’all are so lovely, and I’m not totally sure why anyone chooses to interact with me or to follow me nonetheless. Maybe you’ve read a fic of mine, or none at all, I appreciate you all the same 💕 I know some of you may be in and out of hiatus, but just know that I’m thinking of you!! And if this is the first time you’re coming across my blog, I guess this is a good time to introduce myself. Hi, I’m Teresa. It’s nice to meet you 😄

If you’re reading this, hopefully we can chat a little more. I would love to get to know such lovely people 😊  To my beautiful mutuals, I love you all sooo much 💓 I’m not the best at expressing my feelings, but I hope that this is a start! @190713 @95swifi ✩ @alwayschoosechocolate ✩ @aureumjeon ✩ @beebopboobop ✩ @boobearcupcake ✩ @btsaremyfaves ✩ @btssmutheaven ✩ @bwiq ✩ @engeljimin ✩ @ddaengwrld ✩ @emiyooa ✩ @geniuslab 💌 ✩ @gimmeyoon (@gimmeyoon-main) ✩ @girlwiththespecs ✩ @gukgalore ✩ @gukkheaven ✩ @guktwt ✩ @hobimygs​ ✩ @hoseoknysus ✩ @idiotscalledfriends ✩ @joonary ✩ @kitsutaes (@geniusguk) 💌 ✩ @littlemisskookie ✩ @llsanjoonie ✩ @lovehrs ✩ @magicshop-myg ✩ @map-of-yoongi ✩ @maptoyoongi ✩ @mercurygguk ✩ @minflix ✩ @minlexia ✩ @minyoongsueit ✩ @mygsii ✩ @outroguks ✩ @pjmskosmos ✩ @sdmnluv ✩ @softaellie ✩ @spookitokki (@spookitokkimain) ✩ @starrytete 💌 ✩ @syugasshi ✩ @taesseok 💌 ✩ @tokyoscript ✩ @ve1vetyoongi ✩ @vminary 💌 ✩ @vtbts ✩ @vxngguk ✩ @wthkook ✩ @yourdelights 💌 If your url is bolded, scroll down for some words of affirmation. ✨ If you have an emoji (💌) next to your url, scroll down for a special message. 😇🌟  And here’s a shoutout to some of my favorite fic writers, because you all allow me escape to my happy place !! Thank you so much for contributing to the writing community !! This online space is pretty hectic, especially as of late, but you all make it worth it. Even if you’re taking a break from writing, I am here cheering you on !! And to let you know that I’ll support you no matter what. I hope you never lose your spark for passion and creativity !! Sometimes life gets the best of us, and other times, things are not in our control, but I want to send my love and appreciation to you nevertheless. Your fics have inspired me to try my own hand at writing, and I’m forever grateful ✨ You’re spectacular, every single one of you, so never forget that! Kpop isn’t that serious, but I’ll probably think about your fics until the day I die. @bymoonchild ✩ @floralseokjin ✩ @foreverpark ✩ @geniuslab ✩ @gimmeyoon ✩ @gukgalore ✩ @gukkheaven ✩ @guktwt ✩ @jamaisjoons ✩ @gukyi ✩ @kookswife ✩ @kinktae ✩ @kpopfanfictrash ✩ @minflix ✩ @mygsii ✩ @personasintro​ ✩ @prolixitae ✩ @readyplayerhobi ✩ @spookitokki ​ ✩ @ubemango ✩ @ve1vetyoongi (yee, you might see some repeats because my moots are super talented) 💖  A love letter from me to you: 💌 @geniuslab Megan !! This might sound soo sappy, but you’re the very first person I followed when I made this blog !! It’s because I’ve read all of your fics (perhaps more than once on my old account), and you inspired me to start writing as well. You have no idea how happy I was when you said you would get back into writing fics. I guess I’ll expose myself right now, but I’ve sent a few anons to you on the matter haha (yes, I am a 7 Chances enthusiast, one of many). You’re so talented, and I admire you so much 🥺 A gif maker and fic writer ?? Nothing you can’t do !! Among other things, you’re such a kind-hearted individual. I’ve read plenty of your text posts, and there’s just something so warm about the way you carry yourself. You deserve the world, and I wish for nothing but the best for you !! I hope you have an amazing new year and that you have space for peace, love, and healing. Please know that I support you through and through, and that you are well-loved ❣️

💌 @kitsutaes (@geniusguk) Yas !! I know we just started chatting, but I love getting to know you !! It’s hard for me to reach out to people because I’m shy, but I’m really grateful that you hit me up 😊 It’s been so nice getting to know you, and I hope we can get closer 💕 I’m already learning so much about you because our chats just flow from one topic to another !! You said you wanna visit new york one day, so I’ll hold you to that 😉 I’ll be your tour guide, and the only exchange I’ll ever need is your friendship !! Some dried mangoes would be nice too 😚 haha jk … unless 😳 I hope you have an amazing year filled with lots and lots of love. May you receive everything you’re wishing for !! 

💌 @starrytete Mirelle !! I’m still getting used to your new url LOL. But how could I ever forget you?? You are quite literally the human embodiment of an angel. You’re always spreading positivity, and I adore you with all my heart. I wish that I could be as radiant as you !! All the emojis that I’m using in this post?? An homage to you 🌼☀️ I don’t think I can ever look at emojis the same way thanks to you haha. Sending you lots of love!! I hope we can speak more in the future!! May the new year bring you happiness and good fortune!! Please take care of yourself, ok?! Message me whenever because my inbox is always open 🥰 

💌 @taesseok Mia !! I just love seeing you on my dash. I’ll give you a quick run down: Teresa: :[ Mia: *posts* Teresa: :] It’s like the universe knows. You’re a light in this world, and I hope you never lose your spark !! May you smile as often as I do (all thanks to you) 💗 I wish for nothing but your happiness since you deserve it and more. In fact, it’s the world that doesn’t deserve you and your sparkle !! I hope this year was rewarding for you, but I already know that 2020 will be better and better. I’ll be sending you lots of positive energy for the new year hehe 💞 Hopefully we can talk more soon !! I’d love to be friends !!

💌 @vminary Kiara !! I’m so happy that you reached out to me all those months ago because you’ve become one of my closest online friends !! I can’t tell you how much you mean to me because the limit does not exist. It’s so easy to talk to you, and sometimes our conversations are big sis/lil sis -esque (I’ve always wanted a sister lol 🐣). I feel as if we’ve taught one another so much, especially because of our cultural differences and the tiny age gap that we share. I find myself missing you because of the time zones LOL. In the middle of the day, I’m wondering whether or not you’re sleeping well :’) Why do you have to live across the world?? 😔 I would totally send you a package if I wasn’t broke haha. I’m sending you all my love here though, and I hope that’s enough !! 💛

💌 @yourdelights Destinee !! You are SUCH a sweetheart. The messages that you send me are so kind, and I don’t know what I did to deserve you. Do let me know how you stumbled across my blog because I feel like you’re way too cool for me LOL. Your posts are always so hilarious, and the tags have me dying. Your sense of humor >> !! My love for you is immeasurable, and I hope you know that, ahh. I think it was truly solidified when I found out you’re a fan of day6 and the rose :’) I’m not really a multi-stan, but from that moment on, I was sold. That was the only time my instincts did not let me down 🌹💝 I swear I’m getting introduced to new fandoms because of you haha. And when you went on a lil hiatus, I really missed seeing you on my dash !! I hope that you’ll be with us for a long time though !! I really can’t wait for what’s in store for next year, because no pressure or anything, but I’m sincerely excited for your WIPs hehe. I’m rooting for ya, so make sure you make the new year your b*tch !!  Lastly, thank you so much to my followers !! I see y’all in my activity, and I wanna let you know that I love you from the bottom of my heart !! At this point, I’m more of an update blog than a fanfic blog LOL :’) And if you follow me because you’ve stumbled through my fics, I just want to say 🤯 what?! It blows my mind that anyone reads my work, let alone enjoys it. I never would have though that I’d find solace in reading and writing considering I’m a full on STEM nerd. In conjunction with that, I literally started writing fiction 7 months ago to this day. I didn’t even realize that it would lead me to such amazing connections. With so many lovely people, popping in and out of my dashboard, inbox/DMs, and activity page, my heart b u r s t s with love!! Your interactions mean the world to me, even the most minute things like reblogs make my heart flutter. I really do check the reblogs to see if anyone has left a tag. Single words and keyboard smashes mean the world to me too !! Before I was a fic writer, I was just a silent reader. I always admired writers for the worlds they craft, the characters they develop, and the plots they devise, all for it to come together in one cohesive work of literature. Now that I have a vague understanding of what that’s like, I know that it’s nothing short of strenuous. Words are so powerful, and although I’m a really sensitive sap, I’ve read so many things that hit me to the core, and now I’m sure to tell the authors how much I enjoy their fics. If they went through hours (perhaps days/weeks/months) of drafting, writing, editing, and formatting, a quick comment from the reader really doesn’t hurt !! It’s the most rewarding thing a writer could ever ask for. As an amateur author myself, being on the receiving end is the thing that keeps me going !! I promise you, I don’t take any of it for granted. Your words seriously resonate with me, and it’s a huge motivator for me !! I hope that in the new year, I can work on new pieces for you all (as much as I don’t want to make up excuses, juggling life is not easy as a student!!) I always say that I write for myself, and as true as that is, I want to share my stories with you lovely people !! I pour my heart and soul into my work, and the build up of excitement is nothing if it means I can’t share it with someone else. So, old supporters, new supporters, look out for new content in the future. I hope you’re as excited as I am for the new year!! Please take care, y’all, and remember that I love you. My inbox is always open 💌 So let’s be friends 😇

[theonceoverthinker]

Staff of Creation Theory Thoughts and Companion Theory

So, like most people in the Fair Game community, I’ve taken notice of the Staff of Creation Theory created by @fairgame-is-canon. To be honest, it took me a while to really believe in the theory -- no offense to fairgame-is-canon, he did a wonderful job creating it, and it’s got some serious backing by all sorts of great fairy tale meta. However, given how much of a blow 7X12 was to my confidence in the writing of RWBY, the new brand of pessimism it birthed in me felt that while the theory itself was good, it was also a stretch. But with more information being DISCORD-vered (Because puns) every day in the group page, I re-evaluated my feelings and started to think what I felt like a Clover resurrection would be like if this theory were true.

And as I thought on it, I found myself differing with the consensus as to some of the circumstances of the resurrection, namely Ironwood’s motivation for using it, how he would get the staff with the new Maiden, and the sacrificed being that would allow for it to happen. Again, I say this not as a slight to fairgame-is-canon, quite the contrary -- he’s one of the leading figures in the #CloverDeservedBetter movement, and I respect the hell out of him as well as consider him a friend -- but just as a fun ‘it could also go like this’ companion theory, so to speak. This one also won’t reference a lot of the meta aspects that back up this theory since that was all done by people far more apt to take it on than myself, but it will instead be focused on the story and character directions that would ultimately inform and follow this decision, in universe.

Now, with all of that said, let’s get to it!

The biggest point of difference between my version of the theory and fairgame-is-canon’s is Ironwood’s motivation for bringing back Clover in the first place. While I think it does make a lot of sense, I personally don’t fully subscribe to the theory that James will give his life to get Clover back. And to be fair, I think his thoughts on why Ironwood would bring him back are super well thought out -- I’m just coming out of V7 with a less than optimistic viewpoint over whether Ironwood can be redeemed at this point. I’m simply not really convinced he can be.

I can guess what you’re probably thinking: If I don’t believe James can be redeemed, then how will Clover be able to come back?

Well, I have a...darker opinion about how that’s going to happen.

To understate things, James is in a BAD spot right now. He lost control over the Winter Maiden, he no longer has access to the Staff of Creation (More on that problem in a minute), he’s all alone, his resources are exhausted, Grimm are destroying Mantle, and oh yeah -- SALEM IS ON HIS DOORSTEP WITH A FREAKIN’ GRIMM WHALE OF DOOM! So now, even his plan of retreating with the staff is utterly moot since Salem is -- again -- RIGHT THERE!

James needs a little bit of help, and a WHOLE LOTTA luck.

Say, wasn’t there someone who used to provide that for him?

So James hears that Qrow and Robyn were brought in, and goes to find out where Clover is, unaware that Clover’s dead.

But Qrow is fast to let him know that.

He SCREAMS at James for Clover’s death, swearing revenge in a rage. James doesn’t even know how to take all of this. Clover’s dead...he truly is doomed.

But during Qrow’s outburst, James notices something -- Clover’s pin in Qrow’s hand.

And then he gets an idea.

James confiscates the pin, and ignoring Qrow’s loud protests and promises of revenge, takes a walk over to the hospital wing.

He walks past Clover’s bed, oddly and notably offhandedly, and instead goes a few doors down...to where Winter’s hospital bed is.

Winter is apologetic for losing control of the Winter Maiden, but James is surprisingly not furious. Instead, he simply and stoically asks who the Winter Maiden is.

And whether intentionally or not, Winter reveals the answer to him.

It’s Penny.

With that revelation, the last piece of James’ plan falls into place, and far easier than he expected it to be at its conception.

Now, Penny may be the Winter Maiden, and emotionally, she’s a real girl first, but she’s also a robot, and a robot James has assured others in the past is under his control.

What if that wasn’t just fluff, said to comfort the already apprehensive council?

And what if, just like he did team RWBYJNROQ’s scrolls, James can take control over Penny whenever he wants?

From the safety of the airship, Penny is unintentionally propelled away from her friends and through the sky back to Atlas Academy. It’s absolutely HORRIFYING to watch, and tragic as even after receiving the ultimate moment of validation that she IS a real girl, Penny is reminded that real girl or not, she’s a robot at the end of the day and just as subject to a certain level of powerlessness as ever. Ruby stretches out her arm as much as she can to try and grab her -- she might even go into Petal Burst mode...but she fails.

James forces her to open the vault, grabs the staff, sacrifices a random minion of his (Or maybe Watts, and that’s why he kept Watts alive), and brings Clover back.

And the episode ends with James holding the staff, and a blinding blue light taking over.

The next one begins at the hospital. The flatline that is next to Clover’s body slowly springs back to life.

Clover wakes up in the same hospital bed that he was in in the previous episode, gasping as he recalls the last moments of his life. Instinctively, he looks to his stomach, which is now whole once more (Pun intended), maybe with a neat blue scar to match the staff’s color.

The nurses and doctors are astounded, and so is he but before they can say anything, Clover runs out of bed.

He's alive, and he needs Qrow to know that.

He RUNS to the jail and DEMANDS to see Qrow, pushing past the guards and running directly into the line of cells.

Qrow and Robyn are sitting in a cell towards the back when suddenly, Qrow hears his name called by an impossible person.

"QROW!"

Qrow and Robyn barely have a moment to register who is calling his name before Clover shows up on the other side of the cell.

It’s all Qrow can do to not lose his balance, and Robyn (Who is also more than a bit happy herself) helps him stay on his feet as he approaches Clover. You can see in Qrow’s eyes that he’s wondering if this is a dream, or if he’s truly gone insane.

But no...something gets through to him that this is the real Clover Ebi.

Through the bars, forgetting everything and everyone else just for this moment, they hug, unashamed of everything that they mean to each other. Qrow might tear up a bit.

Clover is about to call over a guard to release them, but then remembers...Qrow was put under arrest for more than just his murder.

That’s when both of them (Plus Robyn) ask how this is even possible.

And then, James comes in.

He tells Clover that he brought him back because he is his most loyal aide, and then directs him out of the jail cell. Clover really doesn't want to leave -- not without Qrow -- but James refuses. Reluctantly, Clover complies with James’ wishes, but before that happens, once James has left the cell, he promises Qrow and Robyn he'll figure this out and convince James to free them.

Throughout the volume, Clover comes to realize how fucked up James' priorities are, but still thinks his mind can be changed. During this time, he also visits the prison once or twice to confer with Qrow and Robyn. It's during those visits that we learn just why Clover trusts James so much. My theory is that James never made Clover feel like he was just his semblance, and was useful for his skills and kind heart.

But then, he inadvertently finds out that James indeed did only revive Clover for his semblance. James is stoic once this truth comes to light, and alongside the doubts that had already been overwhelming Clover over James’ priorities, this convinces Clover to finally leave James’ company.

It's exciting, non?

AND there's more

@whipped4qrow helped me out with this one

Clover then goes to the jail to finally free Qrow and Robyn...but they aren't there (Think Zuko trying to rescue Iroh in “The Day of Black Sun” in ATLA).

That's right! The Happy Huntresses freed them!

But Clover knows where they're going, and this time, he’s staying on Qrow’s side until the bitter end.

We catch up with Qrow an episode later, and after leaving the Happy Huntresses to pursue another Grimm, Tyrian finds him, and the two are set up for another fight. 

However, Qrow's all alone, and after fighting a bunch of Grimm (Probably not even using Harbinger), Tyrian is FAR more equipped to take him on than vice versa. He has Qrow on the ropes, but suddenly, Tyrian is propelled backwards by his tail, screaming as he flies through the air.

Qrow is on the floor, and panics because snow dust covers his vision. He’s unsure of what will happen next. 

But then, he sees a hand through the dust, and takes it.

And as the dust clears, he sees Clover standing there, holding his hand, and smiling.

“Need some help?”

Qrow smiles back. 

“You bet I do.”

And together, they beat the SHIT outta Tyrian!

I don’t have any real predictions beyond that, but I think this companion theory gives way to complete Clover, James, Tyrian, and Qrow’s character arcs.

...That’s all, folks.

[kevin-coleman]

Do What You Must

What’s the priority here?  I mean, with my writing?  People go into it with lofty ambitions and I have to say that my own measure up to everyone else’s, but let’s be realistic: I’m no Dashiell Hammett, no Raymond Chandler, no Ross MacDonald.  Those were the giants of crime, the wise old men who defined an entire genre and even pushed its borders out into literature.  Where do I fit in all that?  Can I even get close to what those men achieved?

Do I want to make money?  Yes.  As the great Leonard Cohen once said, “I want to get paid for the work that I do.”  But do I have the talent to make money?  Maybe.  If people like what I produce, then they’ll buy it, but I have to start producing.  I haven’t written with much regularity since before Christmas, so as with any practice I need to get back on track and start working.

But is the priority the money?  Or is the priority the expression of what’s in my head?  I have a vision for what I want the Burback stories to be (salvation, redemption, love, healing) and articulating that I think is more important, or at least it’s the main driver.

As I write this, the Merciless Inner Critic is scoffing behind his hand.  “You don’t have what it takes to write what you’re conceiving.”  Stupid Inner Critic.  He’s the main reason I find so many excuses not to write which brings me around to the real priority: actually writing.

All that other stuff is moot--the money, the artistic expression--is moot if I don’t sit down each day and write something.  I guess that’s why I’m here now, writing this entry, so that I can engage my brain in something other than scrolling mindlessly through Twitter or YouTube.  Get those grey cells firing again and blacken a page, physical or digital, with some thoughts, coherent or otherwise.  

The art will come.  

First say to yourself what you would be, then do what you have to do. -- Epictetus

[blue-opossum]

Forum Distortion and Examining a PDF Document

        Morning of April 22, 2022. Friday.

        Dream #: 20,213-03/04. Optimized 3 minute 15 second read.

        I include two dreams in this report because they have similar causality. There have always been only a few different foundations of dreaming experiences I have had, but with a virtually infinite variety of intriguing narratives. Although one fundamental factor is seeking to resolve my physicality (and mobility) to achieve wakefulness (including somatosensory-tangibility and vestibular-motor), either with arm or leg movements (autosymbolic, not symbolic) or to sustain my dream with a higher level of metacognition, another builds upon trying to engage thinking skills (such as reading) to achieve wakefulness. These two dreams utilize the latter. (Of course, trying to attain viable physicality is what most people do when in hypnopompic sleep paralysis, but that is moot as people are too empty-headed to understand its direct connection to the dream state proper. Instead, I suffer through other people's "dream interpretation" fallacies.)

        In my first dream, I am on a forum on the Internet. Although it is a gaming forum, the post I read is about dream content. The poster asks if the other site members have had dreams about driving a car without registration. I consider it a ridiculous question because it does not make sense that people would think someone's imaginary vehicle would need to be "registered" in the real world while dreaming about it.

        I write a response of three short paragraphs about how I often have dreams about driving a car or bus, piloting an airplane, or even being a train conductor without any thought of a vehicle needing to be registered (as it is only a dream) or even having a license. (If I needed one, I would mentally summon it in my make-believe role. That is how my dreams usually work.) I rewrite my post a couple of times because the text changes (as is typical in most dreaming modes).

        When I look back at the page, I cannot find my post. I cannot find the original question, either. I eventually use the search bar for words such as "dreamt." The webpage has infinite scrolling at first (though this soon changes, contradicting the narrative), so I wait for other posts to load. I consider that the page updates so quickly that my post may already be a page or two behind. However, when I look further back at the top of the previous page, the times are from hours earlier (that my dream self somehow knows even though it fails realizing the correct year in the next scene).

        My dream contradicts its narrative again (as is often the case). Although I had been reading forum content on the Internet on my computer, my dream self now thinks I had been reading a magazine published in February 2021. Simple logic still fails, though. Firstly, I consider that date as earlier this year (even though it is 2022). I also mistakenly think that if I had written my response more recently, it would have suddenly appeared in the magazine if it had been a later issue (while briefly and ambiguously contemplating I had been on a type of forum, though the ridiculousness of this fallacy is consciously irresolvable).

        This lack of realistic dynamics and total failure of logical thought in dreams has fascinated me since I was a child (even though the causality is simply the mind not being viably conscious). I have always felt there was beauty and uniqueness despite how foolish and wrongful dream content often is. The unique mistakes in dreams (especially ongoing narratives that contradict themselves) are unlike reality on so many levels. It should be appreciated, not pretending it is something else with "interpretation" (in contrast to causality). It is a likelihood that the forum question about "registering" was more about my dream self not fully "registering" my presence in the dream state. That would be similar to the many dreams I had of writing down what I was dreaming while in the dream state without fully realizing my writing would not be there when I woke. It is such an intriguing fallacy that words cannot do it justice.

        In my other dream, I read a letter online from an elderly man writing to someone about a PDF he has. I consider helping him understand the file and what the document contains.

        I download the Adobe document onto my computer, and I open it inside a special kind of software where I can examine everything in the file, including any "hidden" layers.

        I see many photographs. The document is about tourism, but I do not see much textual content.

        I use my mouse to slide one image so that a partial photograph of flowers is wholly visible. I find many nature-based photos "hidden" behind others.

        I tell the man there are so many photographs in the document, many of them "hidden" behind others, that it probably weighs 500 pounds. (That is absurd because digital data does not "weigh" anything.)

[longcloudlegato-blog]

A final Korero.

Music is a difficult topic to write about. Unlike politics or the economy, it refuses succinct definition. Attempting to objectively qualify a piece of music as good or bad is a moot point, because the criteria by which it is judged is so varied for many people.

 I undertook this topic because I am passionate about music. While I lack the talent to make it a career, it has been a therapeutic outlet and a way to express emotions that otherwise couldn’t be articulated.

 Despite listening to music actively since my early teens, I knew there was a gap in my knowledge of music from other culture. My own bias was geared towards punk and rap, musical genres that America dominates. As a bicultural New Zealander (I’m technically half-American), I was aware of a gaping hole in my knowledge of Te Reo and the surrounding culture.

 What I discovered was a culture that heavily relied on singing and music to express itself. The waiata and taonga pūoro, song and musical instruments, were a part of daily life for Māori (1). They were part of agriculture and worship, and very important as objects. However, Western influences had transformed these basic structures into an ability to represent a culture which could have been smothered by the European invasion.

 But Māori resisted this change. New Zealand’s culture is enriched by that resistance, and the music I discovered is reflective of that.

 Poi E is a song everybody knows, but may not understand what the song is about. According to Taania Ka’ai (2002), Poi E was about controlling tempestuous emotions with rhythm and dance. The emerging interest in hip-hop inspired the choreography, but the idea of controlling emotions through music spills over into hip-hop as well. The genre is a bastion for expressing feelings of disenfranchisement but also a way of expressing power and bravado, which we saw from SWIDT and their track “No more parties in Stoneyhunga.”

 The dominant narrative throughout my blog was New Zealand artists connecting or reconnecting with their cultural roots. The most successful demonstrated an ability to represent New Zealand on the international stage. For example, Neil Finn, an established artist and household name who teamed up with Fleetwood Mac earlier this year, and Lorde, who smashed US pop chart records with her song “Royals.” Lorde proved that breaking away from musical formula could garner massive success. Royals was instrumentally bare, but still hooked an audience of millions of people.

 But these artists are Pākehā. Maori and Polynesian culture is slower to achieve access to the mainstream international stage. Opetaia Foa’i, one of the creative minds behind Disney’s Moana had been performing for years, but I doubt many had heard his music before the release of the film.

The greatest discoveries were blends of Te Reo and genres I was already familiar with. Alien Weaponry, for example, have had immense success by approaching Te Reo as a means of accessing their ancestral history and channelling it through the energy of heavy metal. Their song “Rū Ana Te Whenua” references Pukehinahina, a site of conflict during the New Zealand Wars. The song also gives details of the battle, like the network of underground trenches the Māori used to fire on the British (Keenan, D. 2012).

Another example is Rei, who produced an album done entirely in Te Reo. Poi E took hip-hop choreography and repackaged it. Rei took a genre that is dominated by American artists and used it to express himself and his cultural roots. While most probably can’t understand the lyrics because our education system doesn’t emphasise Te Reo, the music is still worth listening to because of Rei’s performance.

 I thought it was fortunate that my blogging activity coincided with New Zealand Music Month. I expected to find a lot of information about New Zealand Music being published and discover some new artists. What I actually found was more celebrations/commemorations of artists who weren’t really relevant anymore, like the Headless Chickens, an eclectic post-punk band who were active between 1985 and 1999. While revisiting old artists is a good thing, I was disappointed that an entire month dedicated to New Zealand music hadn’t actively developed my understanding of it.

 New Zealand has two major awards ceremonies, the New Zealand Music Awards and the Silver Scrolls. The NZMAs are for a range of achievements and genres, while the Silver Scrolls are for song writing specifically. Both award ceremonies are directed by organisations constituted by artists, producers and publishers. The ceremonies recognise multicultural artists, with figures like Scribe and SWIDT taking awards home.

 The industry is making a profit, with the relatively recent technology of music streaming being a dominant source of income. According to Alice Webb-Liddall (2018), a journalist from the Spinoff, the New Zealand music industry grew by 14.6% between 2016 and 2017. 2016’s profit was $86.2 million and 2017’s was $98.8 million, which equals a profit increase of 12.6 million dollars. Unfortunately, Webb-Liddall was unable to discern how much of that stays in New Zealand.

 My research has uncovered artists that explore their cultural identities through music. As New Zealand continues to grow as a nation, it is faced with the task of developing its identity as a nation. We are a post-colonial society, and that comes with a unique set of challenges to be faced. Music is an important facet of that development, being placed as not just a capitalistic industry, but also as a means of exploring identity.

 There are artists in this blog I will endeavour to add to my listening habits, Alien Weaponry and Rei being the artists I want to watch develop. But to the rest of them, both established and upcoming, I wish them luck. The global industry is massive and viciously competitive. New Zealand, small jewel of the Pacific, has demonstrated an ability to represent itself on the international stage. We just need to remember that, unlike the criticism levelled in The Prophet Motive’s song “Being Pākehā”, culture isn’t something you sell. It’s something you cherish and nurture. If Aotearoa can remember that going forward, we can forge a cultural identity that can withstand time, the global music industry and internet bloggers.

 E noho rā. Farewell.

 Bibliography:

APA Referencing format

Taonga     pūoro. (n.d.) Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20110309210911/http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/Education/OnlineResources/Matariki/Matarikimusic/Pages/overview.aspx.     Accessed 28/06/18.

Ka’ai,     T. (2002) Poi E. Retrieved from http://folksong.org.nz/poi_e/. Accessed     8/04/18

Keenan,     D. (2012). New Zealand Wars - Gate Pā, Tauranga. Te Ara - the Encyclopaedia     of New Zealand. Retrieved from https://teara.govt.nz/en/new-zealand-wars/page-7.     Accessed 28/06/18.

Webb-Liddall,     A. (2018). Cheat Sheet: New Zealand music’s making money. The     Spinoff. Retrieved from https://thespinoff.co.nz/music/21-04-2018/cheat-sheet-new-zealand-musics-making-money/.     Accessed 28/06/18

Prime,     D. (1983). Poi E. On Patea Māori Club [CD]. New Zealand: Maui Records.

Larkin, T. (2017). Rū Ana Te Whenua. On Tū [Digital release]. Austria: Napalm     Records

Libeau, I. (2016). No More     Parties In Stoneyhunga. [Digital Release]. New Zealand/Australia:     Universal Music New Zealand Limited/ Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd./     SWIDT Music Ltd./ 3D/ SWIDT Ltd.

Hine, D. (2017). Being Pākehā. On Atlas     Shrugged [Digital Release]. New Zealand.

Little, J. (2013). Royals. On     The Love Club EP and Pure Heroine [CD/Digital Release].     New Zealand: Lava/ Republic/Universal/Virgin.

[cooolinmiill-blog]

Analysis Paralysis: Using Google Analytics Data as Inspiration to Act Now

The best thing about Google Analytics is also the worst thing: there's a massive amount of available data.

Why is that both good and bad?

You can use that data to improve and understand. Your traffic. Your audience behavior. Your goals. Your marketing. That's good.

But because there's just so much of it, it's easy to get bogged down in just looking at it, swimming through it, and not actually making any decisions or doing anything beneficial. That's bad.

And that's analysis paralysis.

We've all been there: you're so busy analyzing the data and considering all options that you never actually make a choice. Nothing happens. You're afraid to make the wrong decision, or you're overwhelmed with the sheer volume of the data itself and/or the directions you could take it.

In order to succeed, you have to break that cycle. And when it comes to Google Analytics, the only way to sidestep the analysis paralysis trap is to approach it with a concrete reason or plan.

You have to know what you're doing before you dive into the deep end of the data pool.

Do that, and it can inspire you to action. Today. Right now, in fact. You just have to be proactive in your approach, and go in seeking answers to your already-established questions.

Google Analytics is a very good tool in your arsenal. Good…but not perfect. It does have its shortcomings. But that shouldn't stop you from turning to it again and again.

Need some inspiration on how to be inspired by the data you're collecting? I'm here to help. Break the analysis paralysis cycle with these five ideas.

Content Inspiration

If you're doing any content marketing – and of course you are, because as you may have heard, content is king – then you need a steady stream of content ideas.

And that can be tricky. Coming up with new content is one of greatest challenges about running a successful inbound campaign. According to CMI's B2C Content Marketing report, when respondents were asked to list their biggest obstacles:

56% said producing engaging content

46% said producing content consistently

39% listed producing a variety of content

What if I told you that Google Analytics can help with all of that? Know where to look and it can provide more inspiration than a sunset over the Roman Coliseum (or whatever other location does it for you).

I Need Ideas. Inspire Me!

Here's what to do: head on over to Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages. This report will give you a list – in descending order from most sessions (i.e. most popular) to fewest – of the landing pages on your site.

Hit the Secondary dimension dropdown menu, and select Source/Medium under Acquisition.

Now you can see the source of the traffic, too.

Pay particular attention to those coming from organic search, referral, and direct, as these are the pages people are searching for and/or clicking the most because it appeals to them or answers their question. These are your popular pages with the public at large.

And instant inspiration for where to turn your content efforts next. Most popular pages all about Topic X? Do more of X. Referral traffic from Facebook always going to posts on Topic Y? Create more Y, and be sure to share it on that platform.

See what I mean? The data here can show you exactly what is resonating with your audience and bringing in traffic.

But don't just create more of those topics. Think about presenting the opposite view, or updating and expanding, or creating a different content type (video, infographic, blog post, case study) under the umbrella of the popular subjects. Sky's the limit.

Now, a word of warning: you need to consider the other metrics in the report besides just the number of sessions. Look at the Behavior section (bounce rate, pages/session, and avg. session length). Plenty of sessions, but a very high bounce rate or very low pages and session length means the content is not delivering as advertised. It's not what your people want. Creating more of that would be a waste of time.

You need to take a holistic view for this to work. Be inspired…but aim for informed inspiration. No one metric can give you the whole picture.

You can do the same thing with Acquisition > Site Content > All Pages to get a general overview of everything on your website. Just ignore your homepage, and contact page, and so forth. Concentrate on the pages that people opt to view the most because it interests them. That's your content inspiration.

I Need to Populate my Editorial Calendar. Inspire Me!

So now you've been inspired. Content ideas are percolating and bouncing around your head. It's time to start inputting those thoughts into your calendar for the next month, or quarter, or year.

Need a little inspiration as to what to schedule when? Google Analytics to the rescue once again.

Examine your content over time to see what's most popular at various points of the year. It's easy to do. See the date range at the top-right of your reports? By default, it's set to the previous thirty days, but you can change that range to whatever you want it to be.

Look at a full year. Check out the summer months (June, July, August). Or the winter. The holiday season. Map it out. Plan the coming year in advance based on what was popular at that time last year, or the year before that.

Over time, you'll likely start to see trends corresponding to set periods of the calendar year. Match your content to its popularity peak for maximum impact.

Inspired? You've got ideas, and you know when to schedule them. You should be chomping at the bit to get started.

But we're not done yet.

Big Picture Inspiration

When it comes to your website, there are basically three things you can do with it:

Nothing

Improve it

Expand it

Surprisingly, “do nothing” is not always a bad thing. If analysis paralysis is keeping you from making a decision and doing something, well then, that's bad.

But after careful consideration of the data, the best decision just might be to actively do nothing.

I'm Not Sure What to Do with My Traffic Sources. Inspire Me!

Let me give you a quick example using your traffic sources. You've got organic search, direct, affiliate, social, email, referral, and paid.

How do you know what you should be doing with each one? Nothing, improve, or expand? The answer is easier than you might believe, and buried within the Google Analytics data. You just need to do a little digging.

Go to Acquisition > Overview, but change the date range in the top-right to cover at least the past 90 days (or 180, or 365, or whatever). You're looking for a baseline site average, so you want a larger period of time than just the default past month.

Scroll down to the data separated by channel. For now, we're only interested in the site average that appears at the top of each metric column.

These are your key engagement metrics (bounce rate, pages/session, avg. session length, and conversion rate. Jot them down (you can use a digital notepad, spreadsheet, or even just a scrap of paper).

Next, change the date range to the past seven days or so, and then click on each channel to get their recent individual averages for those same metrics.

You can now compare each channel's current performance against the site average to determine your course of action. Add up the percent differences (they can be positive or negative) to get a relative engagement score for each channel.

For example, if the site average bounce rate is 8.80%, pages/session is 2.31, and conversion rate is 17.67%, and for referrals the past week we see:

Bounce rate of 27.53%, which is a difference of -212.84% (remember that for bounce rate, the higher the worse)

Pages/Session of 3.5, which is a difference of +51.5% (if it had been 1.7, then the difference would have been -26.41%)

Conversion rate of 42%, which is a difference of +137.69%

We would then add up -212.84 + 51.5 + 137.69 to get a relative engagement score of -23.65%. That's not great…it's not even decent.

The closer you are to zero, the more that channel is performing at the site average. A positive engagement score means it's outperforming, while a negative one means it's falling short.

To determine what to do, find the engagement score for each channel, and consider it along with the amount of traffic it brings in.

Low traffic and low score? Do nothing (at least for now). It's not worth the time and energy.

Low traffic and high score? Probably best to do nothing. Engagement is already good, but the traffic makes it a moot point.

High traffic and low score? Improve it. Tweak your content. Boost the visuals, CTA, relevancy, and so on.

High traffic and high score? Expand it. Do more of whatever you're doing. This audience is keen on you already, and are looking for more of you and your brand.

The Google Analytics data can give you a quick snapshot of what you need to do for each channel to right the ship, or keep it on course. Nothing, improve, expand.

I'd Love to Increase My Referral Traffic. Inspire Me!

Getting traffic from a link appearing on another website is a pretty sweet deal. Good for you, good for them.

Find the sites sending you top-flight traffic already under Acquisition > All traffic > Referrals. Reach out to them and suggest a guest post idea (complete with a link back to your site in your bio). Click each one to see the exact page your link appears on, giving you more insight into the context and topic of the referral link.

If the traffic is already flowing to you from them, they have a captive audience interested in whatever it is you do and have to say…so give them more. It's a mutually beneficial relationship.

You can find additional opportunities by finding other sites similar to your top referral sources. A service like the Audience Overlap Tool makes it fast and convenient. Generate a list, then reach out, connect, and engage.

I Don't Know Which Keywords to Go After for a Quick Boost. Inspire Me!

You know that keyword research is important to your online strategy. And you also know that seeing any kind of result can take a long time. It sometimes feels like you're not accomplishing anything at all.

Google Analytics can provide a quick boost using data you've already collected on keywords you're already ranking for. You're just not ranking well for them…yet.

Check out Acquisition > Search Console > Queries. If you've connected your Google Analytics and Search Console accounts, you'll see a list of search queries that are delivering people to your digital domain, as well as clicks, impressions, CTR, and Average Position for each one.

It's that last one we want to turn our attention to at the moment. Click the advanced tab and create a filter to include (Acquisition) Average Position Greater than 10. Hit Apply. This will list only those queries where you appeared on page two or higher of the SERPs.

Why are we interested in queries appearing beyond the first page (aka the wasteland of the SERPs)? Because they have low CTRs, but you could easily improve that. Even a small improvement might bump you to the bottom of the first page with only minimal effort. The page(s) already exists. They keywords are already targeted.

Instead, tweak your headline for those pages to include the keyword queries and emotional trigger words (if it can be done naturally). Use anger, fear, disgust, joy, and yes, inspiration to get the click (high arousal emotions – both negative and positive – get more attention). Keep your title tag to under 55 characters.

Next, rewrite your meta description. Limit it to 150 characters. Be clear and concise, making it explicit what comes after they click your link. Write the description like a CTA using power words like discover, learn, uncover, achieve, and so on. And include the search query keyword if possible.

A stronger title and description is often enough to boost your CTR, and a better CTR can give you a quick and easy rank boost. The difference in traffic going from the eleventh spot to the ninth spot (and therefore appearing on page one) is sizeable. If that doesn't inspire you, I don't know what will.

That should be enough to keep you busy for awhile. Google Analytics may not seem like much of a muse at first glance, but it's all in how you look at it. There's inspiration aplenty. Take action. Slay the analysis paralysis beast. Get better. Grow. And succeed.

In what other ways does Google Analytics guide and inspire your actions? Leave your ideas in the comments below.

About the Author: Aaron Agius, CEO of worldwide digital agency Louder Online is, according to Forbes, among the world's leading digital marketers. Working with clients such as Salesforce, Coca-Cola, IBM, Intel, and scores of stellar brands, Aaron is a Growth Marketer – a fusion between search, content, social, and PR. Find him on Twitter, LinkedIn, or on the Louder Online blog.

[dianesaddler]

Analysis Paralysis: Using Google Analytics Data as Inspiration to Act Now

The best thing about Google Analytics is also the worst thing: there’s a massive amount of available data.

Why is that both good and bad?

You can use that data to improve and understand. Your traffic. Your audience behavior. Your goals. Your marketing. That’s good.

But because there’s just so much of it, it’s easy to get bogged down in just looking at it, swimming through it, and not actually making any decisions or doing anything beneficial. That’s bad.

And that’s analysis paralysis.

We’ve all been there: you’re so busy analyzing the data and considering all options that you never actually make a choice. Nothing happens. You’re afraid to make the wrong decision, or you’re overwhelmed with the sheer volume of the data itself and/or the directions you could take it.

In order to succeed, you have to break that cycle. And when it comes to Google Analytics, the only way to sidestep the analysis paralysis trap is to approach it with a concrete reason or plan.

You have to know what you’re doing before you dive into the deep end of the data pool.

Do that, and it can inspire you to action. Today. Right now, in fact. You just have to be proactive in your approach, and go in seeking answers to your already-established questions.

Google Analytics is a very good tool in your arsenal. Good…but not perfect. It does have its shortcomings. But that shouldn’t stop you from turning to it again and again.

Need some inspiration on how to be inspired by the data you’re collecting? I’m here to help. Break the analysis paralysis cycle with these five ideas.

Content Inspiration

If you’re doing any content marketing – and of course you are, because as you may have heard, content is king – then you need a steady stream of content ideas.

And that can be tricky. Coming up with new content is one of greatest challenges about running a successful inbound campaign. According to CMI’s B2C Content Marketing report, when respondents were asked to list their biggest obstacles:

56% said producing engaging content

46% said producing content consistently

39% listed producing a variety of content

What if I told you that Analytics can help with all of that? Know where to look and it can provide more inspiration than a sunset over the Roman Coliseum (or whatever other location does it for you).

I Need Ideas. Inspire Me!

Here’s what to do: head on over to Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages. This report will give you a list – in descending order from most sessions (i.e. most popular) to fewest – of the landing pages on your site.

Hit the Secondary dimension dropdown menu, and select Source/Medium under Acquisition.

Now you can see the source of the traffic, too.

Pay particular attention to those coming from organic search, referral, and direct, as these are the pages people are searching for and/or clicking the most because it appeals to them or answers their question. These are your popular pages with the public at large.

And instant inspiration for where to turn your content efforts next. Most popular pages all about Topic X? Do more of X. Referral traffic from Facebook always going to posts on Topic Y? Create more Y, and be sure to share it on that platform.

See what I mean? The data here can show you exactly what is resonating with your audience and bringing in traffic.

But don’t just create more of those topics. Think about presenting the opposite view, or updating and expanding, or creating a different content type (video, infographic, blog post, case study) under the umbrella of the popular subjects. Sky’s the limit.

Now, a word of warning: you need to consider the other metrics in the report besides just the number of sessions. Look at the Behavior section (bounce rate, pages/session, and avg. session length). Plenty of sessions, but a very high bounce rate or very low pages and session length means the content is not delivering as advertised. It’s not what your people want. Creating more of that would be a waste of time.

You need to take a holistic view for this to work. Be inspired…but aim for informed inspiration. No one metric can give you the whole picture.

You can do the same thing with Acquisition > Site Content > All Pages to get a general overview of everything on your website. Just ignore your homepage, and contact page, and so forth. Concentrate on the pages that people opt to view the most because it interests them. That’s your content inspiration.

I Need to Populate my Editorial Calendar. Inspire Me!

So now you’ve been inspired. Content ideas are percolating and bouncing around your head. It’s time to start inputting those thoughts into your calendar for the next month, or quarter, or year.

Need a little inspiration as to what to schedule when? Analytics to the rescue once again.

Examine your content over time to see what’s most popular at various points of the year. It’s easy to do. See the date range at the top-right of your reports? By default, it’s set to the previous thirty days, but you can change that range to whatever you want it to be.

Look at a full year. Check out the summer months (June, July, August). Or the winter. The holiday season. Map it out. Plan the coming year in advance based on what was popular at that time last year, or the year before that.

Over time, you’ll likely start to see trends corresponding to set periods of the calendar year. Match your content to its popularity peak for maximum impact.

Inspired? You’ve got ideas, and you know when to schedule them. You should be chomping at the bit to get started.

But we’re not done yet.

Big Picture Inspiration

When it comes to your website, there are basically three things you can do with it:

Nothing

Improve it

Expand it

Surprisingly, “do nothing” is not always a bad thing. If analysis paralysis is keeping you from making a decision and doing something, well then, that’s bad.

But after careful consideration of the data, the best decision just might be to actively do nothing.

I’m Not Sure What to Do with My Traffic Sources. Inspire Me!

Let me give you a quick example using your traffic sources. You’ve got organic search, direct, affiliate, social, email, referral, and paid.

How do you know what you should be doing with each one? Nothing, improve, or expand? The answer is easier than you might believe, and buried within the Analytics data. You just need to do a little digging.

Go to Acquisition > Overview, but change the date range in the top-right to cover at least the past 90 days (or 180, or 365, or whatever). You’re looking for a baseline site average, so you want a larger period of time than just the default past month.

Scroll down to the data separated by channel. For now, we’re only interested in the site average that appears at the top of each metric column.

These are your key engagement metrics (bounce rate, pages/session, avg. session length, and conversion rate. Jot them down (you can use a digital notepad, spreadsheet, or even just a scrap of paper).

Next, change the date range to the past seven days or so, and then click on each channel to get their recent individual averages for those same metrics.

You can now compare each channel’s current performance against the site average to determine your course of action. Add up the percent differences (they can be positive or negative) to get a relative engagement score for each channel.

For example, if the site average bounce rate is 8.80%, pages/session is 2.31, and conversion rate is 17.67%, and for referrals the past week we see:

Bounce rate of 27.53%, which is a difference of -212.84% (remember that for bounce rate, the higher the worse)

Pages/Session of 3.5, which is a difference of +51.5% (if it had been 1.7, then the difference would have been -26.41%)

Conversion rate of 42%, which is a difference of +137.69%

We would then add up -212.84 + 51.5 + 137.69 to get a relative engagement score of -23.65%. That’s not great…it’s not even decent.

The closer you are to zero, the more that channel is performing at the site average. A positive engagement score means it’s outperforming, while a negative one means it’s falling short.

To determine what to do, find the engagement score for each channel, and consider it along with the amount of traffic it brings in.

Low traffic and low score? Do nothing (at least for now). It’s not worth the time and energy.

Low traffic and high score? Probably best to do nothing. Engagement is already good, but the traffic makes it a moot point.

High traffic and low score? Improve it. Tweak your content. Boost the visuals, CTA, relevancy, and so on.

High traffic and high score? Expand it. Do more of whatever you’re doing. This audience is keen on you already, and are looking for more of you and your brand.

The Analytics data can give you a quick snapshot of what you need to do for each channel to right the ship, or keep it on course. Nothing, improve, expand.

I’d Love to Increase My Referral Traffic. Inspire Me!

Getting traffic from a link appearing on another website is a pretty sweet deal. Good for you, good for them.

Find the sites sending you top-flight traffic already under Acquisition > All traffic > Referrals. Reach out to them and suggest a guest post idea (complete with a link back to your site in your bio). Click each one to see the exact page your link appears on, giving you more insight into the context and topic of the referral link.

If the traffic is already flowing to you from them, they have a captive audience interested in whatever it is you do and have to say…so give them more. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.

You can find additional opportunities by finding other sites similar to your top referral sources. A service like the Audience Overlap Tool makes it fast and convenient. Generate a list, then reach out, connect, and engage.

I Don’t Know Which Keywords to Go After for a Quick Boost. Inspire Me!

You know that keyword research is important to your online strategy. And you also know that seeing any kind of result can take a long time. It sometimes feels like you’re not accomplishing anything at all.

Analytics can provide a quick boost using data you’ve already collected on keywords you’re already ranking for. You’re just not ranking well for them…yet.

Check out Acquisition > Search Console > Queries. If you’ve connected your Google Analytics and Search Console accounts, you’ll see a list of search queries that are delivering people to your digital domain, as well as clicks, impressions, CTR, and Average Position for each one.

It’s that last one we want to turn our attention to at the moment. Click the advanced tab and create a filter to include (Acquisition) Average Position Greater than 10. Hit Apply. This will list only those queries where you appeared on page two or higher of the SERPs.

Why are we interested in queries appearing beyond the first page (aka the wasteland of the SERPs)? Because they have low CTRs, but you could easily improve that. Even a small improvement might bump you to the bottom of the first page with only minimal effort. The page(s) already exists. They keywords are already targeted.

Instead, tweak your headline for those pages to include the keyword queries and emotional trigger words (if it can be done naturally). Use anger, fear, disgust, joy, and yes, inspiration to get the click (high arousal emotions – both negative and positive – get more attention). Keep your title tag to under 55 characters.

Next, rewrite your meta description. Limit it to 150 characters. Be clear and concise, making it explicit what comes after they click your link. Write the description like a CTA using power words like discover, learn, uncover, achieve, and so on. And include the search query keyword if possible.

A stronger title and description is often enough to boost your CTR, and a better CTR can give you a quick and easy rank boost. The difference in traffic going from the eleventh spot to the ninth spot (and therefore appearing on page one) is sizeable. If that doesn’t inspire you, I don’t know what will.

That should be enough to keep you busy for awhile. Google Analytics may not seem like much of a muse at first glance, but it’s all in how you look at it. There’s inspiration aplenty. Take action. Slay the analysis paralysis beast. Get better. Grow. And succeed.

In what other ways does Analytics guide and inspire your actions? Leave your ideas in the comments below.

About the Author: Aaron Agius, CEO of worldwide digital agency Louder Online is, according to Forbes, among the world’s leading digital marketers. Working with clients such as Salesforce, Coca-Cola, IBM, Intel, and scores of stellar brands, Aaron is a Growth Marketer – a fusion between search, content, social, and PR. Find him on Twitter, LinkedIn, or on the Louder Online blog.

Analysis Paralysis: Using Google Analytics Data as Inspiration to Act Now posted first on Kissmetrics Blog

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from Scott McAteer https://scottmcateer.wordpress.com/2017/02/13/analysis-paralysis-using-google-analytics-data-as-inspiration-to-act-now/

from WordPress https://dianesaddler.wordpress.com/2017/02/13/analysis-paralysis-using-google-analytics-data-as-inspiration-to-act-now/

[samiam03x]

Analysis Paralysis: Using Google Analytics Data as Inspiration to Act Now

The best thing about Google Analytics is also the worst thing: there’s a massive amount of available data.

Why is that both good and bad?

You can use that data to improve and understand. Your traffic. Your audience behavior. Your goals. Your marketing. That’s good.

But because there’s just so much of it, it’s easy to get bogged down in just looking at it, swimming through it, and not actually making any decisions or doing anything beneficial. That’s bad.

And that’s analysis paralysis.

We’ve all been there: you’re so busy analyzing the data and considering all options that you never actually make a choice. Nothing happens. You’re afraid to make the wrong decision, or you’re overwhelmed with the sheer volume of the data itself and/or the directions you could take it.

In order to succeed, you have to break that cycle. And when it comes to Google Analytics, the only way to sidestep the analysis paralysis trap is to approach it with a concrete reason or plan.

You have to know what you’re doing before you dive into the deep end of the data pool.

Do that, and it can inspire you to action. Today. Right now, in fact. You just have to be proactive in your approach, and go in seeking answers to your already-established questions.

Google Analytics is a very good tool in your arsenal. Good…but not perfect. It does have its shortcomings. But that shouldn’t stop you from turning to it again and again.

Need some inspiration on how to be inspired by the data you’re collecting? I’m here to help. Break the analysis paralysis cycle with these five ideas.

Content Inspiration

If you’re doing any content marketing – and of course you are, because as you may have heard, content is king – then you need a steady stream of content ideas.

And that can be tricky. Coming up with new content is one of greatest challenges about running a successful inbound campaign. According to CMI’s B2C Content Marketing report, when respondents were asked to list their biggest obstacles:

56% said producing engaging content

46% said producing content consistently

39% listed producing a variety of content

What if I told you that Google Analytics can help with all of that? Know where to look and it can provide more inspiration than a sunset over the Roman Coliseum (or whatever other location does it for you).

I Need Ideas. Inspire Me!

Here’s what to do: head on over to Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages. This report will give you a list – in descending order from most sessions (i.e. most popular) to fewest – of the landing pages on your site.

Hit the Secondary dimension dropdown menu, and select Source/Medium under Acquisition.

Now you can see the source of the traffic, too.

Pay particular attention to those coming from organic search, referral, and direct, as these are the pages people are searching for and/or clicking the most because it appeals to them or answers their question. These are your popular pages with the public at large.

And instant inspiration for where to turn your content efforts next. Most popular pages all about Topic X? Do more of X. Referral traffic from Facebook always going to posts on Topic Y? Create more Y, and be sure to share it on that platform.

See what I mean? The data here can show you exactly what is resonating with your audience and bringing in traffic.

But don’t just create more of those topics. Think about presenting the opposite view, or updating and expanding, or creating a different content type (video, infographic, blog post, case study) under the umbrella of the popular subjects. Sky’s the limit.

Now, a word of warning: you need to consider the other metrics in the report besides just the number of sessions. Look at the Behavior section (bounce rate, pages/session, and avg. session length). Plenty of sessions, but a very high bounce rate or very low pages and session length means the content is not delivering as advertised. It’s not what your people want. Creating more of that would be a waste of time.

You need to take a holistic view for this to work. Be inspired…but aim for informed inspiration. No one metric can give you the whole picture.

You can do the same thing with Acquisition > Site Content > All Pages to get a general overview of everything on your website. Just ignore your homepage, and contact page, and so forth. Concentrate on the pages that people opt to view the most because it interests them. That’s your content inspiration.

I Need to Populate my Editorial Calendar. Inspire Me!

So now you’ve been inspired. Content ideas are percolating and bouncing around your head. It’s time to start inputting those thoughts into your calendar for the next month, or quarter, or year.

Need a little inspiration as to what to schedule when? Google Analytics to the rescue once again.

Examine your content over time to see what’s most popular at various points of the year. It’s easy to do. See the date range at the top-right of your reports? By default, it’s set to the previous thirty days, but you can change that range to whatever you want it to be.

Look at a full year. Check out the summer months (June, July, August). Or the winter. The holiday season. Map it out. Plan the coming year in advance based on what was popular at that time last year, or the year before that.

Over time, you’ll likely start to see trends corresponding to set periods of the calendar year. Match your content to its popularity peak for maximum impact.

Inspired? You’ve got ideas, and you know when to schedule them. You should be chomping at the bit to get started.

But we’re not done yet.

Big Picture Inspiration

When it comes to your website, there are basically three things you can do with it:

Nothing

Improve it

Expand it

Surprisingly, “do nothing” is not always a bad thing. If analysis paralysis is keeping you from making a decision and doing something, well then, that’s bad.

But after careful consideration of the data, the best decision just might be to actively do nothing.

I’m Not Sure What to Do with My Traffic Sources. Inspire Me!

Let me give you a quick example using your traffic sources. You’ve got organic search, direct, affiliate, social, email, referral, and paid.

How do you know what you should be doing with each one? Nothing, improve, or expand? The answer is easier than you might believe, and buried within the Google Analytics data. You just need to do a little digging.

Go to Acquisition > Overview, but change the date range in the top-right to cover at least the past 90 days (or 180, or 365, or whatever). You’re looking for a baseline site average, so you want a larger period of time than just the default past month.

Scroll down to the data separated by channel. For now, we’re only interested in the site average that appears at the top of each metric column.

These are your key engagement metrics (bounce rate, pages/session, avg. session length, and conversion rate. Jot them down (you can use a digital notepad, spreadsheet, or even just a scrap of paper).

Next, change the date range to the past seven days or so, and then click on each channel to get their recent individual averages for those same metrics.

You can now compare each channel’s current performance against the site average to determine your course of action. Add up the percent differences (they can be positive or negative) to get a relative engagement score for each channel.

For example, if the site average bounce rate is 8.80%, pages/session is 2.31, and conversion rate is 17.67%, and for referrals the past week we see:

Bounce rate of 27.53%, which is a difference of -212.84% (remember that for bounce rate, the higher the worse)

Pages/Session of 3.5, which is a difference of +51.5% (if it had been 1.7, then the difference would have been -26.41%)

Conversion rate of 42%, which is a difference of +137.69%

We would then add up -212.84 + 51.5 + 137.69 to get a relative engagement score of -23.65%. That’s not great…it’s not even decent.

The closer you are to zero, the more that channel is performing at the site average. A positive engagement score means it’s outperforming, while a negative one means it’s falling short.

To determine what to do, find the engagement score for each channel, and consider it along with the amount of traffic it brings in.

Low traffic and low score? Do nothing (at least for now). It’s not worth the time and energy.

Low traffic and high score? Probably best to do nothing. Engagement is already good, but the traffic makes it a moot point.

High traffic and low score? Improve it. Tweak your content. Boost the visuals, CTA, relevancy, and so on.

High traffic and high score? Expand it. Do more of whatever you’re doing. This audience is keen on you already, and are looking for more of you and your brand.

The Google Analytics data can give you a quick snapshot of what you need to do for each channel to right the ship, or keep it on course. Nothing, improve, expand.

I’d Love to Increase My Referral Traffic. Inspire Me!

Getting traffic from a link appearing on another website is a pretty sweet deal. Good for you, good for them.

Find the sites sending you top-flight traffic already under Acquisition > All traffic > Referrals. Reach out to them and suggest a guest post idea (complete with a link back to your site in your bio). Click each one to see the exact page your link appears on, giving you more insight into the context and topic of the referral link.

If the traffic is already flowing to you from them, they have a captive audience interested in whatever it is you do and have to say…so give them more. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.

You can find additional opportunities by finding other sites similar to your top referral sources. A service like the Audience Overlap Tool makes it fast and convenient. Generate a list, then reach out, connect, and engage.

I Don’t Know Which Keywords to Go After for a Quick Boost. Inspire Me!

You know that keyword research is important to your online strategy. And you also know that seeing any kind of result can take a long time. It sometimes feels like you’re not accomplishing anything at all.

Google Analytics can provide a quick boost using data you’ve already collected on keywords you’re already ranking for. You’re just not ranking well for them…yet.

Check out Acquisition > Search Console > Queries. If you’ve connected your Google Analytics and Search Console accounts, you’ll see a list of search queries that are delivering people to your digital domain, as well as clicks, impressions, CTR, and Average Position for each one.

It’s that last one we want to turn our attention to at the moment. Click the advanced tab and create a filter to include (Acquisition) Average Position Greater than 10. Hit Apply. This will list only those queries where you appeared on page two or higher of the SERPs.

Why are we interested in queries appearing beyond the first page (aka the wasteland of the SERPs)? Because they have low CTRs, but you could easily improve that. Even a small improvement might bump you to the bottom of the first page with only minimal effort. The page(s) already exists. They keywords are already targeted.

Instead, tweak your headline for those pages to include the keyword queries and emotional trigger words (if it can be done naturally). Use anger, fear, disgust, joy, and yes, inspiration to get the click (high arousal emotions – both negative and positive – get more attention). Keep your title tag to under 55 characters.

Next, rewrite your meta description. Limit it to 150 characters. Be clear and concise, making it explicit what comes after they click your link. Write the description like a CTA using power words like discover, learn, uncover, achieve, and so on. And include the search query keyword if possible.

A stronger title and description is often enough to boost your CTR, and a better CTR can give you a quick and easy rank boost. The difference in traffic going from the eleventh spot to the ninth spot (and therefore appearing on page one) is sizeable. If that doesn’t inspire you, I don’t know what will.

That should be enough to keep you busy for awhile. Google Analytics may not seem like much of a muse at first glance, but it’s all in how you look at it. There’s inspiration aplenty. Take action. Slay the analysis paralysis beast. Get better. Grow. And succeed.

In what other ways does Google Analytics guide and inspire your actions? Leave your ideas in the comments below.

About the Author: Aaron Agius, CEO of worldwide digital agency Louder Online is, according to Forbes, among the world’s leading digital marketers. Working with clients such as Salesforce, Coca-Cola, IBM, Intel, and scores of stellar brands, Aaron is a Growth Marketer – a fusion between search, content, social, and PR. Find him on Twitter, LinkedIn, or on the Louder Online blog.

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Analysis Paralysis: Using Google Analytics Data as Inspiration to Act Now

The best thing about Google Analytics is also the worst thing: there’s a massive amount of available data.

Why is that both good and bad?

You can use that data to improve and understand. Your traffic. Your audience behavior. Your goals. Your marketing. That’s good.

But because there’s just so much of it, it’s easy to get bogged down in just looking at it, swimming through it, and not actually making any decisions or doing anything beneficial. That’s bad.

And that’s analysis paralysis.

We’ve all been there: you’re so busy analyzing the data and considering all options that you never actually make a choice. Nothing happens. You’re afraid to make the wrong decision, or you’re overwhelmed with the sheer volume of the data itself and/or the directions you could take it.

In order to succeed, you have to break that cycle. And when it comes to Google Analytics, the only way to sidestep the analysis paralysis trap is to approach it with a concrete reason or plan.

You have to know what you’re doing before you dive into the deep end of the data pool.

Do that, and it can inspire you to action. Today. Right now, in fact. You just have to be proactive in your approach, and go in seeking answers to your already-established questions.

Google Analytics is a very good tool in your arsenal. Good…but not perfect. It does have its shortcomings. But that shouldn’t stop you from turning to it again and again.

Need some inspiration on how to be inspired by the data you’re collecting? I’m here to help. Break the analysis paralysis cycle with these five ideas.

Content Inspiration

If you’re doing any content marketing – and of course you are, because as you may have heard, content is king – then you need a steady stream of content ideas.

And that can be tricky. Coming up with new content is one of greatest challenges about running a successful inbound campaign. According to CMI’s B2C Content Marketing report, when respondents were asked to list their biggest obstacles:

56% said producing engaging content

46% said producing content consistently

39% listed producing a variety of content

What if I told you that Google Analytics can help with all of that? Know where to look and it can provide more inspiration than a sunset over the Roman Coliseum (or whatever other location does it for you).

I Need Ideas. Inspire Me!

Here’s what to do: head on over to Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages. This report will give you a list – in descending order from most sessions (i.e. most popular) to fewest – of the landing pages on your site.

Hit the Secondary dimension dropdown menu, and select Source/Medium under Acquisition.

Now you can see the source of the traffic, too.

Pay particular attention to those coming from organic search, referral, and direct, as these are the pages people are searching for and/or clicking the most because it appeals to them or answers their question. These are your popular pages with the public at large.

And instant inspiration for where to turn your content efforts next. Most popular pages all about Topic X? Do more of X. Referral traffic from Facebook always going to posts on Topic Y? Create more Y, and be sure to share it on that platform.

See what I mean? The data here can show you exactly what is resonating with your audience and bringing in traffic.

But don’t just create more of those topics. Think about presenting the opposite view, or updating and expanding, or creating a different content type (video, infographic, blog post, case study) under the umbrella of the popular subjects. Sky’s the limit.

Now, a word of warning: you need to consider the other metrics in the report besides just the number of sessions. Look at the Behavior section (bounce rate, pages/session, and avg. session length). Plenty of sessions, but a very high bounce rate or very low pages and session length means the content is not delivering as advertised. It’s not what your people want. Creating more of that would be a waste of time.

You need to take a holistic view for this to work. Be inspired…but aim for informed inspiration. No one metric can give you the whole picture.

You can do the same thing with Acquisition > Site Content > All Pages to get a general overview of everything on your website. Just ignore your homepage, and contact page, and so forth. Concentrate on the pages that people opt to view the most because it interests them. That’s your content inspiration.

I Need to Populate my Editorial Calendar. Inspire Me!

So now you’ve been inspired. Content ideas are percolating and bouncing around your head. It’s time to start inputting those thoughts into your calendar for the next month, or quarter, or year.

Need a little inspiration as to what to schedule when? Google Analytics to the rescue once again.

Examine your content over time to see what’s most popular at various points of the year. It’s easy to do. See the date range at the top-right of your reports? By default, it’s set to the previous thirty days, but you can change that range to whatever you want it to be.

Look at a full year. Check out the summer months (June, July, August). Or the winter. The holiday season. Map it out. Plan the coming year in advance based on what was popular at that time last year, or the year before that.

Over time, you’ll likely start to see trends corresponding to set periods of the calendar year. Match your content to its popularity peak for maximum impact.

Inspired? You’ve got ideas, and you know when to schedule them. You should be chomping at the bit to get started.

But we’re not done yet.

Big Picture Inspiration

When it comes to your website, there are basically three things you can do with it:

Nothing

Improve it

Expand it

Surprisingly, “do nothing” is not always a bad thing. If analysis paralysis is keeping you from making a decision and doing something, well then, that’s bad.

But after careful consideration of the data, the best decision just might be to actively do nothing.

I’m Not Sure What to Do with My Traffic Sources. Inspire Me!

Let me give you a quick example using your traffic sources. You’ve got organic search, direct, affiliate, social, email, referral, and paid.

How do you know what you should be doing with each one? Nothing, improve, or expand? The answer is easier than you might believe, and buried within the Google Analytics data. You just need to do a little digging.

Go to Acquisition > Overview, but change the date range in the top-right to cover at least the past 90 days (or 180, or 365, or whatever). You’re looking for a baseline site average, so you want a larger period of time than just the default past month.

Scroll down to the data separated by channel. For now, we’re only interested in the site average that appears at the top of each metric column.

These are your key engagement metrics (bounce rate, pages/session, avg. session length, and conversion rate. Jot them down (you can use a digital notepad, spreadsheet, or even just a scrap of paper).

Next, change the date range to the past seven days or so, and then click on each channel to get their recent individual averages for those same metrics.

You can now compare each channel’s current performance against the site average to determine your course of action. Add up the percent differences (they can be positive or negative) to get a relative engagement score for each channel.

For example, if the site average bounce rate is 8.80%, pages/session is 2.31, and conversion rate is 17.67%, and for referrals the past week we see:

Bounce rate of 27.53%, which is a difference of -212.84% (remember that for bounce rate, the higher the worse)

Pages/Session of 3.5, which is a difference of +51.5% (if it had been 1.7, then the difference would have been -26.41%)

Conversion rate of 42%, which is a difference of +137.69%

We would then add up -212.84 + 51.5 + 137.69 to get a relative engagement score of -23.65%. That’s not great…it’s not even decent.

The closer you are to zero, the more that channel is performing at the site average. A positive engagement score means it’s outperforming, while a negative one means it’s falling short.

To determine what to do, find the engagement score for each channel, and consider it along with the amount of traffic it brings in.

Low traffic and low score? Do nothing (at least for now). It’s not worth the time and energy.

Low traffic and high score? Probably best to do nothing. Engagement is already good, but the traffic makes it a moot point.

High traffic and low score? Improve it. Tweak your content. Boost the visuals, CTA, relevancy, and so on.

High traffic and high score? Expand it. Do more of whatever you’re doing. This audience is keen on you already, and are looking for more of you and your brand.

The Google Analytics data can give you a quick snapshot of what you need to do for each channel to right the ship, or keep it on course. Nothing, improve, expand.

I’d Love to Increase My Referral Traffic. Inspire Me!

Getting traffic from a link appearing on another website is a pretty sweet deal. Good for you, good for them.

Find the sites sending you top-flight traffic already under Acquisition > All traffic > Referrals. Reach out to them and suggest a guest post idea (complete with a link back to your site in your bio). Click each one to see the exact page your link appears on, giving you more insight into the context and topic of the referral link.

If the traffic is already flowing to you from them, they have a captive audience interested in whatever it is you do and have to say…so give them more. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.

You can find additional opportunities by finding other sites similar to your top referral sources. A service like the Audience Overlap Tool makes it fast and convenient. Generate a list, then reach out, connect, and engage.

I Don’t Know Which Keywords to Go After for a Quick Boost. Inspire Me!

You know that keyword research is important to your online strategy. And you also know that seeing any kind of result can take a long time. It sometimes feels like you’re not accomplishing anything at all.

Google Analytics can provide a quick boost using data you’ve already collected on keywords you’re already ranking for. You’re just not ranking well for them…yet.

Check out Acquisition > Search Console > Queries. If you’ve connected your Google Analytics and Search Console accounts, you’ll see a list of search queries that are delivering people to your digital domain, as well as clicks, impressions, CTR, and Average Position for each one.

It’s that last one we want to turn our attention to at the moment. Click the advanced tab and create a filter to include (Acquisition) Average Position Greater than 10. Hit Apply. This will list only those queries where you appeared on page two or higher of the SERPs.

Why are we interested in queries appearing beyond the first page (aka the wasteland of the SERPs)? Because they have low CTRs, but you could easily improve that. Even a small improvement might bump you to the bottom of the first page with only minimal effort. The page(s) already exists. They keywords are already targeted.

Instead, tweak your headline for those pages to include the keyword queries and emotional trigger words (if it can be done naturally). Use anger, fear, disgust, joy, and yes, inspiration to get the click (high arousal emotions – both negative and positive – get more attention). Keep your title tag to under 55 characters.

Next, rewrite your meta description. Limit it to 150 characters. Be clear and concise, making it explicit what comes after they click your link. Write the description like a CTA using power words like discover, learn, uncover, achieve, and so on. And include the search query keyword if possible.

A stronger title and description is often enough to boost your CTR, and a better CTR can give you a quick and easy rank boost. The difference in traffic going from the eleventh spot to the ninth spot (and therefore appearing on page one) is sizeable. If that doesn’t inspire you, I don’t know what will.

That should be enough to keep you busy for awhile. Google Analytics may not seem like much of a muse at first glance, but it’s all in how you look at it. There’s inspiration aplenty. Take action. Slay the analysis paralysis beast. Get better. Grow. And succeed.

In what other ways does Google Analytics guide and inspire your actions? Leave your ideas in the comments below.

About the Author: Aaron Agius, CEO of worldwide digital agency Louder Online is, according to Forbes, among the world’s leading digital marketers. Working with clients such as Salesforce, Coca-Cola, IBM, Intel, and scores of stellar brands, Aaron is a Growth Marketer – a fusion between search, content, social, and PR. Find him on Twitter, LinkedIn, or on the Louder Online blog.