If you are a good webmaster (and I know that you are), you want to keep producing more of the content your readers want. You can keep giving them what they want by analyzing the statistics of your current content and writing to the keywords that brought traffic in the first place. Not only does this help you keep readers engaged, it also makes you more findable.

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Don’t assume you know what your readers want. Yes, blog comments help, but you could be providing so much more with a little research. Intuition is not a reliable way of brainstorming new content. Instead, follow these four simple steps that will help you determine what they want and give it to them.

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Step One – Tracking

Before you can find anything out, you need analytics tools. For analytics to work, you need to have tracking code installed on your site. Analytics will let you see which keywords brought traffic in and which ones made them hang around a while.

I’ll assume you are using Google Analytics like just about everyone else. If not, go get it installed on your blog and continue what you were doing for at least four weeks before continuing to the next step. You need the tracking code installed and running at least four weeks before the data will be of any use to you.

Step Two – Analyze

Your next step is to run a report called “Top Content” to find out, um… well, what your top content is. Run the report for a block of time, such as 30 days or 90 days. The report will spit a list of links at you showing your most popular pages. Click on each link and get the keywords that drove traffic by going to the drop down menu, clicking “Analyze” and then “Entrance Keywords.”

Step Three – Research

Armed with traffic-driving keyword phrases or keywords, do some research on those keywords to find other angles or new information you can provide to your readers. Put together a piece that references the previously popular article on the topic.

You should also make your existing top pages easier to find by inserting the popular keywords into the popular page titles. Edit the first paragraph of each popular page to include the keyword or keyword phrase. Don’t forget to have viral-friendly tools on your pages like “retweet” buttons or other sharing services.

Step Four – Monitor

Continue to monitor the optimized existing pages and write to related topics. When you see rising numbers, you know you did the job right. After four weeks, start the whole process over again for the new content you have created. See if you can extend your wealth of related content further to draw more traffic and provide more resources for your readers.