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What Statistics do I Measure as a Blogger?

This is a question I was recently asked by a reader, so I thought I’d answer it in a post.

My measurements are based on my objectives, so for each of the following I know exactly where I want to be in the future. I only allow myself to check my statistics once a week, but that’s enough to spot a trend and take some corrective action. Here are my key headings:

  • Average visits per day last seven days
  • Average page views per day last seven days
  • Average hits per day last seven days
  • Percentage of traffic from search engines
  • Bounce rate
  • Page rank
  • Search engine saturation
  • RSS readers
  • Subscribers

Obviously none of these are income related – I have a separate set of financial statistics which I’ll share with you another time. This is about the general “health” of the blog, not how much money it’s making.

How do I record the data?

I use a spreadsheet in Google Docs. Excel would do the same job – essentially I just want to be able to see recent data on a single page. I can do fancy graphs but don’t tend to bother.

image

Where does the data come from?

The first five come from Google Analytics which is a superb free site that provides great stats for webmasters

I check Page Rank with PR Checker

I look at search engine saturation (and other metrics) via Market Leap

RSS readers come from Feedburner, and if you’re not already using their service you should switch to them for this reason

Subscribers come from my Aweber account

Apart from Aweber, all the above services are free of charge.

Are there other key metrics you study? Let me know in comments.

 

You might also enjoy:

1/ The temptation to lie in your blog

2/ Managing your daily tasks and to do lists

3/ Setting goals and objectives for your blog

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Submitted by Mike on April 12, 2009 - 17:57.

Tracking Referrals

Submitted by Alison Kerr (not verified) on April 13, 2009 - 19:55.
Alison Kerr's picture

I also use Analytics, Feedburner and Pr Checker.

I have a question. Can you tell me how to find where in another site a referral is coming from? I had 1 referral each from 3 sites today - all new links to my site. I've a feeling there is a Google search I can do to find where in their site they mentioned my blog, but I can't figure it out!

Thanks Mike for any help :-)

I don't think there's a way

Submitted by Mike on April 13, 2009 - 20:05.

I don't think there's a way to use Google to find out where in a site your link is. But maybe someone else knows how?

Here's an idea though - assuming the site has an internal search facility, use that to search for your URL?

Also, Analytics will give you the actual URL they're linking from, so that at least will narrow it down to a page.

Any other ideas anyone?

Mike

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"Mike's Life is where you can stay current with the life, thoughts, successes and failures of Mike Cliffe-Jones. Never knowingly ordinary, Mike shares as much as possible about his work as a marketer and in business, as well as his enviable lifestyle on and in the oceans around The Canary Islands."

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