How to Track Your Blog Traffic
Calling all bloggers: Webware has rounded up a dozen ways to track traffic for your blog. Why is that important? Glad you asked.
If blogging plays any part in your business life (and I'd say that for anyone who owns or operates a business, it should), tracking traffic is essential. How else will you learn how many people read your posts, what kinds of posts they like best, how long they stay on your site, and so on?
Webware showcases 12 services that monitor your blog's traffic. Here's what they had to say about my favorite one:
Google Analytics Google Analytics is a free service that provides you with a graph showing how many people visited your site. The tool also lets you see which pages visitors clicked, how many unique visitors went to your site, and information on where the most people entered and exited. It's not nearly as advanced as other apps in this roundup, but it's certainly the easiest to use. If you want something simple and accurate, Google Analytics is for you.
I concur. But you may want to check out the other candidates, which include Clickdensity, Clicky, and the amusingly named Mochibot. Most are free, but a few charge for their tracking privileges.
You've probably guessed this by now, but here at Bizhacks we use Google Analytics to learn what kinds of posts you like best (which in turn enables us to produce more of them). I'm continually amazed by the breadth of information it provides and the relative simplicity of the interface.
What do you use to track your blog's traffic, and why?