Several of the usual suspects are using Google Analytics to gather good information about their blogs. Unfortunately the free WordPress platform that I’m using does not allow me to use Google. From what I can tell the WordPress analytics feature is just as powerful as Google and it’s free. I’ll post on that in a second…
Sort of related to all this is the fact that I just started a professional blog so I have blog on the brain. Well there are two Ning groups that are related to my profession. I’ve been a member of both for a while now but rarely visit them. As fate would have it Nathan of TDA Training moved The Convocation of Martial Arts to Ning. Since he’s known to break cinder blocks with his head and scare nuns I thought I had better join too. I’ll be updating my weekly news posts to include a shameless plug for his group.
Since I have blog on the brain I found this post at Occam’s Razor. Mr. Kaushik talks about six ways to measure your blog success. The big key here is that he argues blogs are different from traditional websites.
I don’t like to spend a lot of time tracking or measure stuff. For me blogging should be easy and free. In my job I spend way too much time in a cage match with technology the way it is. However, after reading his post I did decide to move to Feedburner. Since my old WordPress theme had feeds built in the template and I could not make them disappear (it’s free! what do you expect?) I had to change themes. This explains why I freshened up the dump. Now if I could only get rid of the feet smell.
As for analytics…
Monthly Traffic:
Monthly Traffic 10.26.08
(click to enlarge)
I switched to the free WordPress service in December. What is notable is how my traffic has grown since then.
Top Referrers of All-time:
- mokurendojo.com with 515
- martialarts.blogranking.us/index.php with 365
- pageflakes.com/default.aspx with 286
- google.com/reader/view with 270
- martialviews.com with 168
- wordpress.com/tag/taekwondo with 151
- http://www.martialdevelopment.com/blog/chi-real-energy-or-martial-myth/ with 145
- wordpress.com/tag/martial-arts with 128
- fistinthefrost.blogspot.com with 106
- tdatraining.blogspot.com with 60
- dojorat.blogspot.com with 28
So I guess I really do owe Patrick Parker a Christmas ham! Anyhow, thanks to all of you who send traffic my way!
Top search terms:
| chuck norris | ||||||||||||||||
| fred flintstone | ||||||||||||||||
| jesus | ||||||||||||||||
| “chuck norris getting his ass kicked” | ||||||||||||||||
| martial arts | ||||||||||||||||
| lockup raw criminal ninds | ||||||||||||||||
| lock up raw criminal minds | ||||||||||||||||
| myth “can’t prove a negative” | ||||||||||||||||
| eastern philosophy humor | ||||||||||||||||
round kick
|
Misc. Statistics:
There you have it!
Since moving to the WordPress free platform I’ve noticed my traffic increase significantly. I’m not really sure why but if you are shopping around for a new home you should consider it. Oh and you can easily download all your old blog posts from most blogging platforms and import them into WordPress.
One other great thing about WordPress is their featured blog service. To get featured you need to:
- upload an avatar if you haven’t already,
- use the categories above when you blog on relevant topics, and
- attract lots of readers to your posts.
As of 10.26.08 I’m pleased to report that WordPress has featured Striking Thoughts!
(click to enlarge)
Lots of people have posted screenshots of the front page and their traffic graphs the first time they see themselves featured. That’s a nice trophy but the best part about being on the front page is that you can attract even more readers who might be interested in your blog.
Final note: A favor for those of you who feed my blog. Please re-subscribe via the Feedburner link that’s at the top right side of my page.
And before I forget…
I recently came across the coolest screen saver ever.
Twingly screensaver is visualizing the global blog activity in real time. Forget RSS readers where you see only what you’re interested in. With Twingly screensaver you get a 24/7 stream of all (viewer discretion advised) blog activity, straight to your screen.
You can configure your blog to be indexed by Twingly too. And if you want to see what it looks like when it’s running check this out!
Next post: The news!
~BCP
What an explosion! It just shows you the benefits of consistency posting and writing well (consistently).
I’ll try to force my readers over here. Uh, you will need to clean up and do some of that Fabreze stuff, though…
Congratulations!
I’ve registered with Google Ad Sense for the heck of it. I’m not sure if my sidebar widgets will run it if approved. I really never thought about trying to make money but with all the traffic I have to give it shot.
I like to think I hit and miss on writing. In addition, I take cues from my top referrers of which you are one.
~BCP
Do you think there’s any point in using the Google analytics if one is already using StatCounter?
J -
I’d give Google a try. I think it plays well with Blogger. From what I remember of stat counter I think Google will give you a better picture.
You could compare the two and cancel one!