Do you ever feel like you are taking a shotgun approach to your blog marketing? Pushing links here and posting on social media there?

Well, you are not alone. Most bloggers do the same thing. Whether knowing this provides comfort or not is questionable but it does let you know that you are not the only one wasting time with your marketing efforts.

I’m guilty of this too.

How I was screwing up my blog marketing

For a long time, I was spending precious time sharing articles on Google+. Week after week I would drop links to my latest content in a number of groups on Google+.

Over the course of several months, I started paying more attention to referral traffic in Google Analytics and noticed that very little traffic was coming from those links. Given this new found revelation that all of my work was in vain, I decided to stop promoting to Google+.

What I gained back in time was well worth the small amount of traffic I may have lost by not promoting to that particular channel.

Where I found success and what I did about it

On the flip side, I noticed a ton of traffic coming from Pinterest. While Pinterest has never been my favorite social platform I recognized that it was my most successful. As such, I started to shift focus to Pinterest to expand and grow my audience.

Bloggers are busy people. Especially those that are holding down full-time jobs and balancing family life. In order to gain the most advantage from your limited time, figure out what your online platform looks like – from a structural as well as a statistical standpoint.

The problem with your online platform may be bigger than you think. Take a few minutes to draw out how your online platform looks and you’ll quickly be able to map out the structural side.

Once you identify each area of your platform, head over to Google Analytics and start to analyze where your traffic is coming from. Even a cursory look at your Analytics should reveal basic findings you can exploit to your advantage.

Here is how I recognized my problem and my opportunity.

You might be surprised by what you see. And you might realize that you are wasting time marketing in areas where you are getting nothing in return.

What you should do to capitalize on your opportunity

When you identify the platforms which are most successful for your blog, drive hard in these areas and forget about the rest. Perform targeted searches for “How to Grow Traffic using (your most successful platform)” and begin playing with the various techniques.

This not only saves you time with marketing but also limits the amount of information you need to consume and tasks you need to perform going forward. You no longer need to game plan and strategize for all of those lost segments.

However, if you have a big player like Facebook showing limited traffic and it’s important to your brand, you obviously need to address the problem.

Spend some time examining your approach and what might be the problem. Start to pay a bit more attention to it as part of your more focused marketing approach.

We are all busy bloggers. Find ways to target your attack so you gain the most bang for your buck and regain some much-needed margin in your life.