by Elizabeth, Delightfully Tacky
Figuring out your statistics can be daunting at first. I remember when I first started wondering about my stats I had no clue how to go about figuring them. In 2009 I got on feedburner and started tracking out how many people subscribed to my feed. I also went to some site and got one of those pageview counter things and put it on my blog. I didn't learn about Google Analytics until much later and wished that I had signed up for it way earlier.
There are a couple different ways to calculate your stats. I use Google Analytics, but there's also a tab in your Blogger dashboard (if you blog through Blogspot) marked "Stats" that also has statistics. I find that Google Analytics works best for me. It was simple to set up and I'm just used to it now.
A site that I learned about from Jessica from WhatIWore is Get Clicky. She liked to use that site to get her stats. I signed up for it, but I never really got into it since I was already using Google Analytics, but I do really like it a lot. If you're just starting to care about your stats, search around and find a site that works best for you. You probably shouldn't worry too much about stats unless you're looking into having sponsors, or if you already do have sponsors. Unless you're just curious! Looking at your stats does change your outlook a bit on your blog. You start to see trends in what posts get more traffic, where your traffic is coming from, what search terms are leading to your blog and so on. You can use that knowledge to really refine your blog and focus your energy on things that seem to affect your traffic. So say if you thought that twitter was an important traffic source and put a lot of energy into it, but then noticed on your analytics that facebook gave you more traffic, you might want to switch your energy to updating on facebook more.
A lot of my referring traffic comes from other bloggers that I'm friends with and who have a similar amount of followers. If you have a blogger buddy, you can team up to send each other traffic! Do guest posts on eachother's blogs, do clothing swaps, stuff like that. All of my major traffic increases have come from other bloggers featuring me, so take advantage of the community and really be a part of it!
Knowing your stats is paramount if you are going to be having sponsors. Things that sponsors are interested in is not only how many subscribers you have, but also how much traffic you have on a daily basis. That number determines how many eyes will see their ad on your site every day. The stats that I share with my sponsors/potential sponsors are:
1. avg monthly pageviews
2. avg daily pageviews
3. unique visitors/month
4. how many subscribers
I also like to share with sponsors the amount of followers/fans I have on other sites like twitter/facebook. This shows them that I have reach beyond just my blog page. So say if I tweet or post on facebook about a giveaway I'm having on my blog, that number of twitter/facebook followers becomes important to a sponsor. That's more people being exposed to their company.
One nice thing about having your analytics tracked, is that you can go back and see how your blog has grown! I really wish I'd signed up for analytics back in 2008 when I first started blogging, simply because I think it would be interesting to see how my blog has grown over the years.
