Statistics are the lifeline of your blog. It can tell you how many readers you have, where they come from, what their demographics are, what posts they read most often, and more. You can use this to help write posts that are more targeted towards the traffic you are receiving. You also need to use this to price your ads and sell your blog to PR and company representatives.
I use quite a few stat programs on my blog. I have added them as needed since there are a few blogs or lists I belong to that require different programs. There are a three that I use all the time though and I recommend that every blog at least have these three.
Statcounter – This program is my favorite for quick analytics. I check it almost daily to see where my traffic is coming from. If I see that traffic is coming from another site then I can head on over, see why, leave a comment, and follow them. It will catch all the traffic, even little blogs, fairly easily so I can thank people who send hundreds of readers my way just like the ones who send me a couple. The free version keeps track of the last 500 visitors and you can upgrade if you want to see more history. I never have since I use other programs for most of my historical data. Statcounter will still keep the historical numbers, just not the actual referral sites and search traffic data.
Google Analytics – Every blog needs to have analytics installed. You can pull up historical data easily and you can dig into your data a lot easier. It is also a free program. With Analytics you can also compare your data to your AdSense advertising to find out who is bringing you the traffic that clicks on your ads. One of my favorite parts of Analytics is the page overlay (click on Content then site overlay). It will show you your site along with numbers showing how often each of your links are clicked. You can see non-performing ads easily that way.
Alexa – Alexa is easy to download go to Alexa and click on “for site owners†then claim your site. The great thing about Alexa is claiming your site and having the toolbar will actually help your own sites rank. Also, once you are large enough it will begin to suggest search optimization terms and it also gives you demographic information.
TASK – Install all three of these programs to your site.
Today you can gain an extra entry into the giveaway by becoming a fan of Little People Wealth on facebook.
Tomorrow we will discuss page rank, Alexa rank, and other numbers you will need for your advertisers.