THE THIRD DEGREE
BLOG STATS
Page views, unique visitors, followers (ahem, I don't care for that word - they are FRIENDS), comments, traffic sources, and MORE! I try not to get too wrapped up in stats, but I am having some fun with them.
When I first started Reading Vacation, I did not even think about blog stats – hey, I didn’t even know what they were. After a while, I installed ClusterMaps to track my visitors. It was fun to see where everyone was coming from. I would even show Travis the different countries on his world map.
I tried out Site Meter for about a week and it was sort of confusing. I wasn't getting very many visitors back then and it seemed like overkill with all the information.
Now, I am using the stats that are available on Blogger. Wow, VERY interesting! I set it up so it does not track my own page views, so I get a good picture of who really does visit, how they get here, and where in the world they come from. It doesn't tell me unique visitors though, and I wish it did.
Even when a post doesn’t get many comments, it sure can get a lot of views. So many visitors come to visit from Twitter and Google too. I was surprised by some of the Google searches that lead visitors here. You probably get some pretty funny ones too!
So, do you have any suggestions for me on tracking stats? What has worked well for you?
I like google analytics, but it's weird and has a lot of graphs and numbers. I also use sitemeter, and since I moved to wordpress, I use wordpress stats. I also have a feedburner feedcounter, and the google followers plugin. I don't care much for the follower plugin since it's not all that accurate for traffic. When I send info to pubs, I usually mention my unique visits per day.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I get some very strange hits from search engines.
I'm enjoying the new blogger stats too. But for more info I use Google Analytics. Tons of stuff to look at there! Stats are fun, but it's good to remember they aren't everything!
ReplyDeleteGoogle Analytics is a free program you should try. When vetting for review books those stats are what the publisher wants to know about. Unique visits is an important one.
ReplyDeleteI user too stats ^^ One is the blogger's =D But as its not complete I use Site Meter ^^ I really enjoy Site Meter and its daily reports ^^
ReplyDeleteI use the new blogger stats too now although I do have a Google Analytics account. I tried to set mine up so that it doesn't count my pageviews but it doesn't seem to be working. Another interesting widget I have on my blog is Feedjit, where you can see the live traffic coming through and where the visitors are from.
ReplyDelete