Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge: It’s All About the Numbers

I’m very excited to have the opportunity to host a Mini-Challenge for the 3rd Edition Bloggiesta put together by Natasha of Maw Books. The last Bloggiesta was my very first and I accomplished so much that I knew I wanted to participate again. So, without further babbling on my part…

As a book reviewer or someone just looking to improve their overall site, stats can be a very useful tool. This can also be a source of great stress and confusion for most bloggers, even those of us who have been doing it for some time now. So in an effort to help sort through the numbers and get to the information you really need to know we’re offering up this mini-challenge. The overall goal here though is to have fun, learn something new and hopefully improve on your already fabulous site!

Your assignment: Set up one account with a Stats Site and have some fun with it!

• Google Analytics (Personally, this is the one I use and I really like how easy it is to use.)
  *Added* WordPress users may want to install this plug-in to make it really easy to access your GA stats: Google Analytics for WordPress
• Woopra (Similar to Google Analytics just a different style.)
• Site Meter (I also use this as a backup, easy to grab stats. They also email you once a week.)
• StatCounter (Simple to use counter showing number of hits and location daily. Also, one of the few that work with WordPress.com websites.)
• IceRocket by Blog Tracker (Suggested by Stacy from A Novel Source)

Let’s Play Around with That Great Data Now: There are a few “Big” things that can get you started off in your journey with stats. Below is a list of suggestions to start with as well as some tips on where to find the information you’re looking for. Remember that the data you are looking at will only be from the date you started your Stats account, most don’t go back to your blog start date.

• Average Daily Hits. The number of people visiting your site everyday.
  Using Google Analytics click on the “Visitor Trending” Tab and then “Visits”. This will tell you the average number of visits per day based on the dates you put in the top right box.
• Average Monthly Page Views. The number of “pages” viewed each month. Pages can be tabs, menus, archives, anything that takes them away from the home page.
  Using Google Analytics click on the “Visitor Trending” Tab and then “Pageviews”. This will tell you the number of pageviews for your site based on the dates you put in the top right box. If you want to calculate your monthly number, just pull out your calculator and divide the number by of months during this time.
• Average Monthly Unique Visitors. The number of “brand new” visitors to your site.
  Using Google Analytics click on the “Visitor Trending” Tab and then “Absolute Unique Visitors”. This will tell you the number of unique visitors for your site based on the dates you put in the top right box. If you want to calculate your monthly number, just pull out your calculator and divide the number by of months during this time.
• Current RSS Subscribers.
  Make sure to head over to Puss Reboots Mini-Challenge to set up your RSS feed. Once this is done you can install a button that tells you how many subscribers you have or just check it from time to time.

Additional Tools:

• Problogger: If you haven’t subscribed to Problogger’s site, I would highly recommend it. He always has a ton of great tips for improving your site. His article 17 Statistics to Monitor on Your Blog is perfect for anyone at any level and will give you some extra fun things to look at with your blog stats over time.
• Google Analytics Blog: This is perfect because if you have a question, they’re sure to have an answer. If you are a beginner, they even have a category to use to get started called Beginner Topics.
• YouTube also has a great video by Google called, Beginning Analytics: Interpreting and Acting on Your Data, just don’t pay attention to the bit about e-commerce unless you’re really interested in it. There are also some other great Analytics videos on there you can check out.
• Smashing Voice also has a fantastic Guide to Using Google Analytics and Tools.
• Woopra has a great set of posts all about Using Woopra, as well as a video review that has me thinking about trying it out.

Remember, this should be fun! Play around with the stats and use them to make your site better. If you notice a particular month has low visits, take a look at what you blogged about and compare it to a more visited month. You may find that your visitors like a certain post more than another. Use these tools to keep improving and enjoying your blogging experience.

I’m by no means an expert, but if you have questions, again, feel free to contact me either on Twitter, via email (the1stdaughter {at} gmail {dot} com) or on my contact page.

Natasha has some wonderful prizes for those of you who participate in these challenges so once completed this challenge come back and let me know how it went in the comments below. You have until the end of Bloggiesta to complete this mini-challenge and report.

Enjoy the Bloggiesta festivities and ‘Ole’!