Product Review - Performancing Metrics

Most bloggers are total stats junkies – watching our blogs grow is really the only measure of success, especially in the early days.

Google Analytics has become the standard measurement tool, as with so many things Google, but I’d like to introduce you to an alternative, that has an interesting and fun “extra.”

But before we come to that, let’s talk about the basics. Performancing Metrics is free to use for one site, and there are paid options that add more sites and a few features, but I’d advise you to go and signup for the free version and check it out.

The main screen is quite similar to Analytics’, clearly showing the usual stuff like:

• Visitors
• Actions
• Time on site
• Total visits by page
• Country
• Search terms used
• Links in

All pretty standard stuff, and there’s an easy to read graph which shows today’s visitors and can be switched to a week, month or year view.

All good, but not groundbreaking. Prepare for the cool part:

By pressing the “spy” tab, you can view what’s happening on your site, in  real time! Have a look at this image, which I just snapped:

That’s a small window of the last few minutes on my site – can you see how you can follow people’s trail through your site? It’s fun to watch at the best of times, but it’s totally addictive when you have a product launch going on! You can see people arrive at the site, read where they came from, follow their progress, see when they click the order button, and watch as they download your product.

It’s not only fun, but it gives you a real insight into what happens and why. You can Tweet a post at a given time of day, and see how many people come onto the site through that link. You can make some changes to a landing page, and instantly see if they have changed the behavior of people arriving there.

It’s the ultimate in geekiness, and you can even “name” IP addresses, so if I know your IP, I know when you’re on the site!

There are plenty of other options – you can set up “Goals” for your site, drill deep into what content people are reading, and deeper still into where they are linking from. But frankly, once you’ve discovered the “Spy” button, that’s all you’ll want to play with!

Try it out for yourself – as I said the basic option is free of charge, and they’ll even let you try the Pro for a period. Here’s the link: Performancing Metrics.

Disclosure: If you do elect to go for one of the paid options in the future, having clicked the links above, I will be paid a (pitifully small) commission for having introduced you.

Other stuff you might enjoy:

1/ Why you have to become a better writer

2/ Switching to Disqus comments

3/ When to start making money from your blog