How to get 75.49% More Readers without Changing (much of) Anything

Finally, Google Analytics shows off its usefulness. Having so much raw data at your fingertips can only be so beneficial if you know how to use it, and whether you average 6 hits a day (like this blog's index page), or 600, it's still fairly obvious when you have a nice 'spike' in your stats.

And of course, if there was a simple, quick fix to getting stats, readers, money, etc., people would have figured it out well before now. There is, however, a pretty simple process to finding quick fixes, because the more things you try to do for a stat boost, the sooner you have to stumble across SOMETHING that works. And yes, it couldn't be much simpler:

1. Experiment. Do something new; it doesn't have to necessarily be something new to the comic. Add some commentary to older pages. Get some new advertising. Go post in a few places you haven't been before.
   
2. Analyze. Using Google Analytics (or whatever other metrics you have), by the next day you can already tell if your brilliant plan is working or not.
   
3. Tinker! If it's working, do it more! If it's not, stop and/or find a new way of doing it.
   

Yes, even your comic has to E.A.T. sometime. Google Analytics couldn't make it easier; because you can tell where your referral links are coming from, it's trivial to trace down which links are being the most effective, or if a source is just sending you a lot of hits that immediately bounce, so you can weed out the ones that just give you a lot of noise from the ones that give you new, genuinely interested fans.

You now have an awesome way to measure the performance of whatever experiments you do, and as long as you're learning something (anything, really) each time you try something new, the better the results get.

And for those wondering: the 75.49% spike is from a well-timed post made to the Furrtive Livejournal Community. You guys are awesome. :)