Ambassador of Books ~ Book Club Madam ~ Blogger Gal

Monday, July 14, 2008

Tracking My Blog Stats

A big THANK YOU to Natasha at Maw Books for introducing me to Google Analytics. I'm having lots of fun tracking the # of visitors to my site and all that goes along with that. I've been blogging since January but July 10th marked exactly 30 days since I starting tracking statistics, so I thought I'd share a bit of what I learned about my blog.

About my visitors ...
  • # of visits = 1,165
  • # of unique visitors = 620
  • % of those who are 1st time visitors = 53%
  • total # of page views = 1,961
  • average time spent on my site per visit = 2.5 minutes
  • average # of pages viewed per visit = 1.7
My most popular pages ...
Search engine terms ...
  • most searches were for specific book titles or authors
  • many searched for my blog by name ... please bookmark me once you find me!
  • some wanted to know what books they should read by age 30 ... not sure there's a real list, but I can make lots of recommendations
  • one was looking for Sgt. Heather Johnson -... that's not me, sorry.
Other things I've learned ...
  • One person spent over an hour on my blog and read 18 different posts - woohoo!
  • Blogger and Google both send me tons of referrals
  • 4% of my visitors come from what google calls OTHER sources (not direct traffic, referrals, or search engines) ... where exactly are they coming from?!
  • I don't know if google analytics counts the people who subscribe to me on google reader or other reader programs - any idea?
  • I check my stats way too often during the day
I must say, I do enjoy this stat thing. It's sort of like a pat on the back letting me know I'm doing a good job. People wouldn't be coming back if they didn't like reading what I wrote, right? That's how I see it and that makes me happy. Thank you all my wonderful readers! :)

12 comments:

Lezlie said...

This looks so interesting! I'm going to sign up now. Thanks for the tip, Heather!! And if anyone know a way to find out how many people subscribe to your blog from readers, please let me know. I'm really curious!

Lezlie

Anonymous said...

Heather - You are so very welcome! I've been tracking for seven months now and it's unbelievable to see the progress made. I remember when I had my first visit outside of the country and when I finally hit all 52 states, I was ecstatic. Now it seems like a distant fond memory. Like you I used to check my stats first thing every morning. Now I'm about every 3-4 days. I liked seeing what my most popular search terms and what my most popular pages are. I don't know what I would do without it because honestly my stats do effect how and what I blog about.

Google Analytics does count those who come from Google Reader. I believe it's referenced as google.com (referral as opposed to google.com (organic) which is search engines. Bloglines says it directly as bloglines.com/referral. I'm not sure about the "other" traffic. I have some as well.

To Lezlie - You can find out how many people are reading your feed through Google Reader by clicking in the right hand upper corner where it says show details. It shows you have 20 subscribers. I believe this only counts those who subscribe through Google Reader though. I use Feedburner for my feed and use it to know how many total subscribers I have. It shows me how they are subscribing (email, google, bloglines, etc) and how many times my feed is pulled up and how many times people click through. It's great! And I think Google is buying out Feedburner as well.

Lezlie said...

Thanks, Natasha!
Lezlie

trish said...

For those of us who are on wordpress and therefore can't embed Google Analytics, you can check how many people are subscribed through Google Reader by ... well, you have to have your own Google Reader account, but you click on Discover (which is right next to Add Subscription), and then click on the tab that says Browse and then you can search using keywords, and I would recommend typing in your blog url. You will pull up your feed and you can see how many subscriptions you have.

Obviously I don't obsess over my stats. Nope. Not at all. Not me.

A regular conversation in my house goes something like this:

"What are you doing? Let's go to bed."

"Oh, I'm just checking something on the computer. It'll just take one sec."

"What are you checking?"

"My blog stats."

"AGAIN? Didn't you just check those like an hour ago?"

Yup. No obsessing here.

Anonymous said...

Heather, I honestly can say that you're one of my favorite bloggers out there. I always enjoy reading your posts...I'm sorry I don't always comment, but I do read your posts regularly. You always bring a "unique" perspective to books you're reading. Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work, kid (sorry, I'm a few years older than you so I think I can say that, and be honored that you're still thought of as a kid ;)

Heather J. @ TLC Book Tours said...

Lezlie - thanks for dropping in! I'm glad you're asking questions ... that's what I do whenever I want to "expand" my blog, and there are always wonderful bloggers out there willing to help.

Natasha - thanks for the clarification, and for always helping when I ask. :)

Trish - I'm not so bad when I'm at home, but at work I just leave the screen open behind whatever I'm working on so I can click over and check it out regularly. It's bad, I know!

ReadingFool - Aw, thanks. *blush* And I don't mind being called "kid" - in fact, I love it! I am NOT old yet, and don't plan to be for a long, long time. :)

Miss Feisty said...

wow!!! I am going to sign up for this, too.

I hated stats in college, but these look fun! :)

Rebecca Reid said...

I love Google Analytics too!

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I found your blog through IComLeavWe. I keep lists of books I read as well. Started back in '05 when my son was born.
I'll have to take some time to look through your site to see if there's anything I should pick up at the library.

http://1crazymomma.typepad.com

Literary Feline said...

I'll have to check Google Analytics out. I use a different stats site, but it's not very good. Probably because I don't pay for the extended service.

I enjoy seeing my stats too. It's funny to see what brings some people to my blog in regards to their searches.

Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity said...

These stats are so much fun to read and do make me curious, but I'm afraid that I will get too caught up in it. I added a little map to my classics challenge site and for a while was obsessed with it. :)

18 posts is fantastic! Sometimes when I discover a new blogger I'll track back a little bit (more so when I first started blogging and before I discovered google reader!).

Rebecca (Ramblings by Reba) said...

I don't use Google Analytics (I use Site Meter), but I should look into the Google thingie. Then again, I, too, check my stats too much, so maybe I shouldn't. :)

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