Someone last week asked me how I knew how many visitors I had each day to my blog. There are lots of tools you can use but I, like most use Google Analytics. I am not going to go into details on how to install it but if you need help here is a good beginner's guide from Mahalo for getting your account set up and figuring out how to initially use it. I rarely refer to Google's help section since I find it to be geared towards a user with a much more techie vocab than myself. When I need help I just google the question I have and usually someone else has translated directions it in a more user friendly way than Google itself. The above Google Love print is by MARCOART ONLINE and combines the Beatles Dynasty with the Google dynasty.
You are going to want to eliminate your own ISP address from your statistics if you are anything like me and check your blog over 20 times a day. You can add a filter from as many computers that you use, I have one for my work and home computers. WeepingWillowyOne on Artfire did a good step by step guide for how to do this here.
Last month I noticed a very alarming trend in my blog stats. I was experiencing a negative % change for the first time ever. I knew intellectually that it was because I had such a huge increase in numbers the month before while running the Lose the Winter Blues Contest. I had done tons of promoting and was linked on all kinds of contest blogs and was still seeing some residual effects of this throughout March. But it was so depressing to see my losses there, especially as they actually got as high as 18% at one point. That is when I jumped into action to try to stop the bleeding, so to speak. I threw myself into Twitter and StumbleUpon and was recently able to turn the corner. I thought it might be interesting for some of you to see where my traffic comes from. If you don't even like looking at your own stats then feel free to move along.
One of the first things I always look at when reviewing my Statistics is where my traffic is coming from. I think this is the most important resource since it helps us to see where we should or shouldn't be putting our energy. To find the whole list you go to your Traffic Sources Overview and click on view full report. I usually have over 70 referring sites, with some of them only referring a few but every one counts as a potential new follower.
Here are my top 10 referring sources from the past 30 days. The first number is the total number of visitors from that site, the second is the average number of page views per visit, The third is the average length of the visit, and the last is the percentage of new visitors.
| 1. | 2,678 | 1.06 | 00:00:25 | 30.96% | | |
| 2. | 1,217 | 1.11 | 00:00:36 | 54.31% | | |
| 3. | 358 | 2.61 | 00:08:32 | 11.45% | | |
| 4. | 266 | 1.06 | 00:00:30 | 43.98% | | |
| 5. | 179 | 1.12 | 00:00:49 | 41.90% | | |
| 6. | 146 | 1.58 | 00:03:50 | 73.97% | | |
| 7. | 80 | 1.12 | 00:00:22 | 81.25% | | |
| 8. | 74 | 1.19 | 00:00:31 | 98.65% | | |
| 9. | 72 | 1.58 | 00:01:17 | 93.06% | | |
| 10. | 33 | 1.03 | 00:00:39 | 33.33% | |
It's no surprise that my biggest source is entrecard. I put the most amount of time into promoting my blog with them. Even with all of their bumps and advertising debacles during the past month they are still the best way to promote your blog that I know of. I no longer do my drops on the weekend since it was taking away too much time from creating so I do have a pretty big drop in viewers by Sunday but I'm ok with that.
The twitter stats are very interesting for me. Those are actually very solid new numbers since I really just started working the twitter last week. Before that I had less than 20 views from them. What is promising from those stats is that they are actually spending some time here, with an average of almost 4 minutes.
The StumbleUpon numbers are about what I thought they would be. A lot of new visitors but not necessarily the same quality. They had an average of only 31 seconds. I will continue to submit some pages to them and it is a good way to search for interesting diversions.
I have been using the etsy forums to promote my blog some the past few weeks too which is where the etsy views are coming from. I'm not real impressed with the quality of these views as the average time is only 22 seconds but I think I will continue to do it as I have time. I also find some great blogs by participating in those threads which is part of the fun.
Do you have any interesting trends or thoughts on Google Analytics you would like to share?
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11 comments:
Really enjoy your blog.
I suffered a severe drop because of my computer issues taking me offline for two weeks, and due to my lack of Entrecard dropping over the past month. It is coming back up, though. Thanks for the link to easy filter tutorial. I have three filters set up, but since I newly set up my computer, I am now being counted.
Hi Paige!
You WON my Blog Contest for May Day 2009!!!
I couldn't find another way to contact you right off, so I thought I'd reach you via your own blog. :o)
I'll need an address to ship the gift basket to once I've built it.
Also, are warm spices ok? Is hot ok? Or would you prefer no spices?
How about loose incense blends that require charcoal for burning?
Please let me know. :o)
Have a lovely evening!
Milaka Strand
Two Strands Soap Works
www.twostrandssoapworks.etsy.com
Wow thats A LOT of hits - congrats! And thanks for sharing all of that good info.
Thanks for sharing all of that info! It is always interesting to see how much traffic one's blog gets...I have a feed which shows me where the last five or so visitors have come from, and that is interesting...although I am just getting started, and I am a "techno-peasant" when it comes to most of the other things that you mentioned!
Enjoy your blog!
wow! Isn't it so neat to look at the numbers?!? I love it!
Congrats on all the hits- that's a lot of work to get. I've had analytics on the shop since etsy set that up, but just recently put in on the blog. I love it and hate it. It's a great resource, but when I haven't been able to spend much time promoting it's sad to see how much hits are affected.
You are to be commended! My blog visits for the last month are 869. You are certainly doing something right.
Do you think sometimes too much information is just, well, too much? Don't get caught up in the numbers, just keep on doing what you love.
And, of course, keep in touch with fellow bloggers. :)
Cheers
Hmmm. Maybe some of the visits are brief (seconds) because of how long your page takes to load. Browsers are notoriously impatient, and since adding all the pretty bells and whistles your page isn't instantly visible.
I like to look at where my traffic is coming from also. Don't always understand the language though. That would be a good tutorial, or something for Tim Adams to talk about on his blog.
I notice that my dashboard visits are about the same everyday - wonder if I need to link my posts again to StumbleUpon and the other engines around. I was told to do that, then not to bec it was spanning. So is it, or isn't it, span, when you link your own site?
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