Comments on: 5 reasons why you should obsess over blog stats

By: Best of WordCount: Go from beginner to blogging superstar | WordCount

Best of WordCount: Go from beginner to blogging superstar | WordCount — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 15:18:29 +0000

[...] 5 reasons you should obsess over blog stats – Monitor page views to see what kinds of topics readers like best. Related posts: [...]

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:11:59 +0000

I check my stats too much, I am obsessive compulsive when it comes to statistics. I wish I paid as much attention working on the blogs.

By: Kathy

Kathy — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 04:11:04 +0000

I’m afraid I am not too familiar with following my stats, I have some wordpress sites I will have to look into that.

Thanks also to becca, one of your commenters I am going to download sitemeter.

It is not too often I linger on a site and enjoy reading the content, I am glad I found your site, I’m now following you on twitter, thanks for the useful info,Kathy

By: Sister Wolf

Sister Wolf — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 04:16:24 +0000

I an usually baffled by my blog stats. But I do know that posts about ugly shoes get more comments than something more complicated.

I wish we bloggers could write about what we WANT to write about instead of trying to boost traffic! In an ideal world….. oh well.

By: Michelle V. Rafter

Michelle V. Rafter — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:05:53 +0000

Becca: Both WordPress.com and WordPress.org – the version of the software I’m using now – have a pretty good stats program built in. You can track what sites people are coming in from (referring sites), what sites they’re clicking through to, what search terms they use, what blog posts they’re looking at, and what other blogs have linked to one or another post on the site. All of those stats are available by the day, week, month, year and all time, which makes it really easy to come up with “best of ” posts because you can search your “all time” lists to see what people have clicked on the most.

Michelle

By: Michelle V. Rafter

Michelle V. Rafter — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:02:23 +0000

Margarette: I haven’t run contests here so haven’t used traffic stats that way but it makes perfect sense, thanks for the suggestion.

Michelle

By: Michelle V. Rafter

Michelle V. Rafter — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:01:12 +0000

Thanks Jesaka. I’m pretty addicted to my blog stats too – glad to know I’m in good company.

Michelle

By: Jesaka Long

Jesaka Long — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:25:48 +0000

Hi, my name is Jesaka and I can be pretty obsessive about my web stats. I love how applicable and no-nonsense your reasons/ tips are. They are especially useful for writers and people who want to analyze their content, not just the traffic. Thanks for such a great post, Michelle!

By: Margarette Burnette

Margarette Burnette — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:42:54 +0000

Thanks for this info, Michelle. I also find blog stats helpful because they let me know which sites are referring readers to my blog.

I run contests often, and I try to announce them on various sweepstakes sites. My blog stats have helped me focus on the sites that bring the most interested readers to my web page.

By: Becca

Becca — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:20:37 +0000

I have a blog on Blogger, and I track it with the free version of sitemeter. Lately I usually check my stats a few times on a day that I post and every few days when don’t. I find it kind of difficult to read the data in a meaningful way because I have to view each category (referral, location, etc.) separately.

I get a lot of my hits come from Twitter, but more than half are from “unknown” sources, whatever that means. Only a few of the known sources are searches.

What do you use to track your data?