Blogging Stats

If you choose to use Blogger over WordPress (which is what I did), then one of the biggest downsides are the stats. You won’t get the instantly updated stats of WordPress. Like any blogger, you will want to see how many views you are getting, and what keywords you’ve hit it big on. Google Analytics is the solution.

Google Analytics is the accepted ‘universal’ stats system. The ability to set up accounts for potential advertisers to look at the stats is a huge feature. It can be the difference in landing the advertiser, or them being suspicious of fake numbers and passing your blog up.

There are many features that Google Analytics has that the default WordPress stats system doesn’t have. Even if Blogger does not provide you these stats, in some ways, Google Analytics is better. Some of the bigger features I like about it are the different breakdowns they will show you. They will show you which countries are viewing your content, which pages are being viewed, where each and every visitor is coming from (the page they were on before yours), and of course, search engine terms. They also keep track of the unique versus page views, because there really is a difference. WordPress will just show how many pages were loaded. You never know if your visitors are viewing one page and leaving. With all this additional information from Google Analytics, it doesn't matter whether you're using Blogger or Wordpress.

I suggest signing up for a free Google Analytics account right now if you haven't already. Right after you are done setting up that account, click on "My Account" and set up your Google Analytics stats system. It's pretty self explanatory and simple. After you’ve done that, you may also like to add my blog to your iGoogle RSS reader. :)

-Aud