Stats Tutorial part 2
Since I’m a science grad and my major was Genetics, you gotta know I LOVE stats. I don’t ‘think’ things happen on my blogs – I ‘know’ they happen. The reason I know that things happen is because I pay attention to the stats on my blogs.
Two week was an introduction to this series on stats. Last week I was sicker than a dog with a cough – sorry, no post 
Today is going to be an overview on the collection of stats as well as some details about stats on a blog.
On blogs we use different plugins or code to collect stats. Almost all blog platforms come with their own stats program, but we usually have the ability to install different ones also.
The two most common methods to collect stats on your blog are Google Analytics and if you have a WordPress.com or WordPress.org blog you have access to Jetpack stats. If you have a Blogger blog, it comes with it’s own stats program but has the ability to have Google Analytics installed quite easily.
If you missed out on the previous post, I suggested in that post that you take a few moments to install Google Analytics on your blog. I have videos that help with this task. Although there are several ways to put Google Analytics in place, I have chosen to illustrate what I think is the easiest.
If you have a WordPress blog:
If you have a Blogger blog:
I’m sure that you are aware, if you have looked at the plugins available on WordPress.org, there are quite a few choices for measuring your stats. The number 1 concern for a stats program is that is only measures human hits. In other words, it keeps track of humans that visit your blog, not spam or non-human visits. This seems like an obvious point to make – I mean, really, who cares how many spam bots visit your blog and leave an annoying little comment behind for you to delete? Interestingly, there are stats programs that count humans and non-humans. An example is the stats program that is found on Blogger. I’m not sure why the Blogger stats program (and others) count non-human hits, but it is certainly misleading! I can’t count the number of people that get a rude wake up call when they move their blog to WordPress and their hits are a fraction of what they were on Blogger. Or put Google Analytics in place on their Blogger blog and get a very different picture of the number people who visit their blog.
So, yes, there are quite a few choices to measure the stats on your blog, but I suggest using a combination of Google Analytics and Jetpack stats (if you have access to it)
Next week we will talk about what program we use to look at what information on our blogs, and a few other tidbits.
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I’ve now re-worked and republished the first three of my books. They were written in hopes of helping authors. If they sound interesting, click on the covers and you will be taken to Amazon.There are two more that will be out in the next few months. Stay tuned for news.
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