18 Comments to “Stats: A Question?”

1. February 28th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
   mayvelous said

   I must say my main priority for check my stats is to see
   who the people are,
   where they come from and
   how they come to my site ie. via which referral.
   Then I check for daily visit numbers.
   Well for me, my stat is not that interesting since not much to see anyway.

2. February 28th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
   ME Strauss said

   Mayvelous!
   How wonderful to see you! How are you?

   If you look closely you will start to see stories about the people who visit your blog. Start to see which posts they visit. Then try to write more about what those kinds of things. That would be serving your readers.

   I also try to put a referral on the posts they visit to other post they might like. That way they might find a reason to stay and get to know me better.

   Thanks for stopping in to say hello, Mayvelous.
   Liz

3. February 28th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
   Martin said

   numbers … numbers … numbers!! I need to be fed and only numbers will satisfy me

   I care about where they go and how long they stay - where they go shows me what topics are of interest and how long they stay tells me if I bore them or not.

   That, and keyword/phrases used: it’s amazing how some folks find you.

4. February 28th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
   ME Strauss said

   I care about where they go and how long they stay - where they go shows me what topics are of interest and how long they stay tells me if I bore them or not.

   What a great statement! I pay a lot of attention to where they go and how they went there. I try to crawl inside their heads and see what they are thinking. I want to be my readers for that moment.

   Keywords are really fun for this blog. Google likes to send the most amazing words this way. . .

5. February 28th, 2006 at 11:29 pm
   Ian McKenzie said

   I’m usually looking at the referral and search word page before I’m checking the numbers. I am often intrigued by the odd search-word combinations that bring visitors to my site.

6. February 28th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
   ME Strauss said

   Hi Ian,
   How are you?

   I like those referral words myself. Though sometimes when I follow them back, I can’t figure out how they got here. I wonder whether they really followed their words or whether Google just dumped them when they weren’t looking. . . .

   Every now and then Google misses. Someone will hit a perfect search word like “nofollow” for Sumeet Jain’s post on the “nofollow” ref link. and somehow they’ll get directed to the main page of the blog. So then I go retag the page and hope the Google hits closer on the next one.

   Some friends do a thing where they bring out the weird search terms from their blogs every now and then. I should do that some Sunday night . . .

   Thanks for reminding me.

7. March 1st, 2006 at 1:29 am
   laughingmachine said

   I dont cares abt the number of visitors mostly i look after the keyword from searches…

8. March 1st, 2006 at 2:28 am
   HART (1-800-HART) said

   I used to really look at my StatsCounter.com reports but it started to take to long to sign in, and go through all of the sites. I’ve been using SiteMeter.com now on all my sites - but, generally I only look at my HART Empire statistics (I embed the sitemeter code in my network stats). I have a short attention span, and only look at the following: (1) Who’s on? (2) Today visits/pages (3) Visit/Pageview Month Graph (4) Recent visitors by referrals. All the rest is fluff, depending on how much I have or if I get on a tangent (or rather off-tangent).

   By the way - I first typed “short attention spank” .. what’s up with that?

9. March 1st, 2006 at 2:32 am
   HART (1-800-HART) said

   oh - forgot to answer question .. I’m thinking of numbers not the people when I’m looking at stats .. all the above (to me) explains the most important number Average Page Views per Visit .. I’m averaging about 1.9

   I think of people when I’m talking or blogging to people though .. and lately, everything I think about relates back to whether or not it is deductible for income tax

10. March 1st, 2006 at 6:02 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Laughing Matter,
    The key word searches ARE fun aren’t they. When you get done with them. Take a minute to try to figure out there the readers came from and what brought them to your blog. Figuring who they are is fun too, believe me.
    Liz

11. March 1st, 2006 at 6:09 am
    ME Strauss said

    Oh HART!

    EVERYBODY HART!

    I pick out a person or two and follow where that person went once a day if I can. Like Martin, I like to see where the people go on the blog and whether I bore them.

    Lately I’ve been using that information to add connections between pages. If a page is popular, I add references to other places they might go. That one act alone–a few referral additions every day has tripled my page view in a matter of two days. I can’t imagine where it will go when I get serious.

    Liz

12. March 1st, 2006 at 10:40 am
    chartreuse said

    That’s a great idea, Liz.

    I check my stats to see how they got there and where they go. And like martin said,see if I bore folks or not.

    It always surprises me that the stuff I really like isn’t the stuff that the majority of people love sometimes. I used to think I had a problem but then I realized it was them…:)

13. March 1st, 2006 at 11:08 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Chartreuse,
    Yeah, I often get the same surprise. The things that I spend the most time on and get the most jazzed about are often not the things that draw the most attention. But then, I guess neither you nor I would make the best choice for “focus group candidate” for a focus group of representative readers. Would we?

    Liz

14. March 1st, 2006 at 11:19 am
    HART (1-800-HART) said

    So .what draws the most attention here in YOUR stats? In my PetLvr site .. believe it or not .. it’s designer dogs and labradoodles. I’m amazed how many hits these 3 pages have .. I should be pounding out more but, I never listen to reason and feel if I did that - well, then I’d be Just Where THEY wanted me to be ~~:P

15. March 1st, 2006 at 11:30 am
    ME Strauss said

    EVERYBODY: HART!
    I was looking at my stats when I got your comment.

    Blog Promotion Basics [for Everyone] is still big and still gets traffic from 9rules on a daily basis.

    Blog Review Checklist is big and so is Checklist for Linking to Quality Blogs. Folks seem to like my checklists.

    A post that Keith wrote, How To Beat Writer’s Block, that was picked up by Lifehacker gets 1-4 visitors a day.

    What Makes a Great SOB?! and certain of the weekly award pages get constant hits–Week 15 for some reason.

    Checking Google Backlinks through Yahoo does too, but that goes in cycles. I think that has to do with the title and uniqueness of it.

    I’m trying to get all of these post on the POPULAR POST Page in the sidebar.

16. March 1st, 2006 at 11:52 am
    HART (1-800-HART) said

    that google backlinks through yahoo is probably just me i always forget that basic command and come back to see the syntax .. I probably show up in your search as “google yahoo”

17. March 1st, 2006 at 11:55 am
    ME Strauss said

    Ooh HART,
    That’s good to know. I’ll think of you every time I see it. It will be like having a rendezvous.
    Liz

18. October 10th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
    Smm said

    I try to optimize my site for specific keywords & it helps me getting kewl stats