Problogger Site Tracking Introduction
Posted in Blogging on Sunday July 18, 2010 | 27 comments
For the SITSGirls Problogger 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Summer Challenge, prompted by Jennifer of She’s a Fat Chick who provided a wonderful and simple tool in the Stat Tracker Spreadsheet, I’m going to be keeping my site stats and I will update them here weekly so you can follow along. I’ve started a discussion on SITS also, so if you want to come and share, please visit the Site Tracking to Date thread! For those who are new to site statistics, I am also including a brief explanation of what each line on my spreadsheet is tracking exactly!
I’m using Google Documents instead of Excel to keep track of my stats, so I can access them anywhere and anytime!
I’m actually quite pleased with my stats for this blog being actively worked on for less than a full quarter!
Google Analytics Stats
First, you will want to track your weekly stats, not your total stats. To calculate the stats just for that week, there is a date range in the upper right hand corner of the Dashboard (the first page you’re taken to when viewing the report for your site). Just select the start and ending date. I used 07/09 – 07/16.
The very first sub-section is Site Usage and it will give you most of the information you need for this tracking. Some of the explanations used in this article are taken from Google’s help documents. For a comprehensive explanation of all major Google stats, check out their Metrics Definitions
- Visits is the number of times someone accessed your site that week.
- Absolute Unique Visits is not in this graph, however if you click on Visitors on the lefthand menu, you’re presented a graph which shows you this statistic. Unique Visits represents the number of unduplicated (counted only once) visitors to your website over the course of a specified time period. A Unique Visitor is determined using cookies.
- Pageviews are instances of a page being loaded by a browser. Google Analytics logs a pageview each time the tracking code is executed.
- Average Pageviews is the number of page clicks by an average visitor to your site. The higher the number, the better!
- Time on Site is also calculated using cookies and tracks exactly that. The total amount of time an average visitor spends on your site before leaving.
- Bounce Rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page. a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors and your average pageviews will be lower.
- New Visits is the number of new visits by people who have never been to the site before. This doesn’t really take into account the same person using multiple machines or devices to access your site, but it’s fairly accurate.
Site Tools Stats
This article covers how to track your RSS feeds for Feedburner subscribers. If you don’t have an account, I highly recommend one since they provide so many feed tools for free! To get to your Feed Stats, click on Subscribers in the Feed Stats menu on the left.
Note: There are other sites like feedburner too, but if you don’t want to use them and your provider doesn’t supply statistics to you, here’s a great tutorial on Using Google Analytics to Track Feed Subscribers. If you have any other resources for tracking RSS feeds, please let me know and I’ll add them here and credit you!
- RSS Subscribers is the number of people pulling in your RSS feed to their feed reader of choice.
- Email Subscribers can be found toward the middle of this page. This might not be relevant if you haven’t set up email subscription capabilities. To set up email subscription you can click on the Publicize tab and there is an option on the left hand side for Email Subscriptions. There will be code there you can use on your site as well. I like offering people choices, so why not?
- Website Grade can be found by going to the Website Grader site and putting in your URL. I highly recommend taking the time to read through the report provided. It fully explains how each statistic is calculated and what your score means. It’s a great tool to figure out what you can do to improve your blog! For an example report, you can see mine. The number represents the percentage of sites not as good as yours according to their own algorithm.
- Blog Grade is another metric derived from the website grader site. It is based on a measurement of the traffic levels to your blog and the number and quality of links pointing at it.
- Alexa Rank is your traffic rank from Alexa.com. Simply plug in your URL and you’re presented with your profile. Here’s mine as an example. The number represents how many sites are better than yours.
Social Media Stats
These are mostly self-explanatory, but for some I’ll go into why I’m keeping track of them. You probably won’t want to keep track of all these yourself!
- Twitter Followers are the number of people who follow you Twitter feed.
- Twitter Grade is derived from the Twitter Grader. It uses a unique algorithm to determine how powerful your profile is. Just plug in your twitter username and it spits out its statistics. Here’s a detailed explanation of how it works, but the short of it is that it’s based on your twitter followers, their twitter grades, how often you update, your follower to following ratio (I try to keep less following than followers), and the number of times people are responding and RTing you among other things.
- Facebook Fans is the number of fans for your Facebook page. It’s super easy to set one up if you don’t have one. From any page on Facebook (try mine after “Liking” it!), just scroll down the left hand side until you see “Create a Page for My Business”. Don’t worry if you’re not a business! You’ll be guided through the setup process. When it comes to the type of business, select website.
- Flickr Contacts – Since I’m a photography blogger and I have a lot of weekly interaction on Flickr due to my Friday Finds Weekly Challenge I want to see how my contacts increase throughout this challenge.
- Friday Finds Group is for my group on Flickr. I recently opened submission for Friday Finds photographs to all, so I want to see how the membership of this group grows in the next month.
How About You?
Are you keeping track of your stats for this challenge? What unique stats are you tracking and what do you hope they’ll reveal for you by the end of the challenge? Do you have any goals for where you’d like to see your numbers by the end of the 31 days?
Please feel free to respond if you have any questions!
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How did you get your # of RSS subscribers? I only see Email subscribers on my feedburner, but I know – because several have told me – that they are subscribing to my RSS feed through their Google Reader.
Cameron´s last blog ..CSA Recipes!!
Twitter: @ingenuemom
When I go to the main page, feedburner.google.com, I see the total # of RSS subscribers next to my Site’s Name.
You can also find it by going to Subscribers under Feed Status in the menu to the left and you should see a graph first thing telling you the total number of your subscribers.
You might be seeing people using Google or their email client as their feed reader. The email subscribers show up under a heading specifically called “Email Subscription Services” and indicate “FeedBurner Email Subscriptions”
Twitter: @lynda
THANK YOU for adding the Google Analytics RSS subscriber link. I’ve set up a goal with what I think is the correct address. Now we’ll see if it catches anything. I just think it’ll only show subscribers from now on, not who is already subscribed because they have to click my RSS button to get included in the goal.
Cameron´s last blog ..Cinnamon Allergy
Twitter: @ingenuemom
You’re welcome!
I haven’t fully read through that article, but I think it should catch any time that URL is being accessed, which should include previous subscribers too.
I’ve just started getting into Google Analytics. I *love* analysis (it’s my day job), so I’m sure you’ll be seeing more statistics posts from me in the future. LOL.
Twitter: @lynda
Thanks for this, this is very helpful information and I’m looking forward to this challenge!!
Tyesha´s last blog ..Blog Hop Friday Linkups July 16th
Twitter: @achicmommy
You’re so welcome Tyesha! I appreciate the RT!
Twitter: @lynda
Thanks for posting! I just did mine. I’ll share on the blog frog forum.
Great! Loved seeing the extra stats you used!
Twitter: @lynda
Just a really quick and general point about the bounce rate: If you have a lot of readers who follow you daily, or in a reader, or just ‘regularly’, the likelihood is that they will stop in simply to catch up on the latest post. Therefore the bounce rate will be high, as they’re not going any further than that one page.
So, a high bounce rate for a personal blog can actually be a good thing, as it’s a sign of loyal readership! So don’t freak out about it
Also, if people follow you in a reader, you won’t get stats at all, so don’t be disheartened by low stats. You might have a huge following, just not actually ‘on your blog’!
Does that make sense??
bubbleboo @ The Thought Bubble´s last blog ..Do You Know What it is Yet
Twitter: @bubbleboo
Those are some great points! Thank you so much for commenting!
Feedburner is helpful to keep track of the lost visits for people subscribing via RSS.
Personally, I still want to have a low bounce rate and high average page views even from loyal readers. (I wouldn’t expect them to visit my site daily.)
Twitter: @lynda
@lynda Thank you so much for all that information! I can’t want for #31dbbb
via Twitoaster
Lynda, this is amazing. Thank you so much!
Jill´s last blog ..IN MY MAKE-UP BAG
Twitter: @glamamomnyc
You’re so welcome, Jill!
Twitter: @lynda
@lynda Thanks for the tutorial. I haven’t been paying much attention to stats lately. Will be interesting to see what happens with #31DBBB
via Twitoaster
@PhotogCynthia You’re welcome!
via Twitoaster
i started with the same spreadsheet, the only major change i made to it was to put two additional columns between each existing column. one to calculate percentage change since the week before and one to calculate percentage change since the first week. i also set up those new columns to change to green or red depending on if the results are good or bad
Carrie´s last blog ..Today is my Last Day of Radiation
Twitter: @carrieactually
Awesome updates!
Twitter: @lynda
Hi Lynda I’m so behind on this one. I have a question tho’ where do I find the Blog Grade part? Is it on Feedburner? Thank you for all your hard work, lady!
Maureen´s last blog ..Friday Flip-off Third Week of July Edition
Twitter: @tatterscoops
Blog grade can be found about halfway down the website grader site.
Twitter: @lynda
Thanks Lynda!
Maureen´s last blog ..Will Indonesian Language Go Extinct
Twitter: @tatterscoops
I posted my Week 1 stats today & I included a question for you. If you have a minute, would you check it out??
http://www.ingenuemom.com/2010/07/31dbbb-week-1-stats.html
Thank you!!
Cameron´s last blog ..31DBBB Week 1 Stats
Twitter: @ingenuemom
Hi Lynda. I was wondering about bounce rate… how exactly can one work on lowering it? I just dont’ know… my posts change daily so I don’t know a way to really combat that.
Also I have NO idea about facebook. I don’t really “do” facebook. I have a fan page but I can’t figure out how or if it’s linked to my personal page, both of which are really for my blog.
Texan Mama´s last blog ..Because I Like to Stir the Pot- Lets Talk About Food Choices
Twitter: @TexMama
Hi Texan Mama! Nice to see you drop by from the sits forums!
So, there are probably whole BLOGS devoted to how to decrease bounce rate! It’s one of those SEO magic tricks everyone tries to do. One technique is not to have the full post on your front page so it forces at least one extra click to read a full article.
No worries about the Facebook fan stuff – if you don’t use it, then just delete the row from tracking and/or add in anything else you do want to track, like Google Friend Connect followers.
Your fan page isn’t really tied into your personal page, though I believe they might be able to see who’s personal facebook page administers the fan page.
Twitter: @lynda
Great article Lynda with amazing details.
By the way, I love the little icon that you have to punctuate your points.
Is that resident in your blog platform?
Kim´s last blog ..Why Do You Shop
Twitter: @moneyandrisk
Hi Kim,
It has to do with the design, not the blogging platform. It’s CSS code. Anyone can have an image like that for bullet points – it just takes adding the image to your server and adding a line of CSS into your code. If you want any help setting up something like that, let me know and I can take a look. (What blogging platform are you using?)
Thanks!
Twitter: @lynda
Thanks, Linda
I’m using WP and we’re still working on the core programming. This week, we’re working on dealing with spyware on the codes.
I need to wait til after we’re done with problems before the spiffy stuff (design details).
I’ll definitely put it on my wish list notes.
Kim´s last blog ..How Your Sense of Style Can Save You Money
Twitter: @moneyandrisk
Great post. I’m learning a lot. Thanks a lot. Now i’m in the phase to understand how to monitor RSS feeds with google analytics.
I currently use StatPRess, To know the total number of visit should I add to visits the no. of RSS per day? Right?
Rossella´s last blog ..Castelluccio di Norcia- a treasure
Twitter: @rossella76