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How do you know whether anybody is reading your blog? Why spend all the time and energy it takes to produce content if there are no readers? This question came up in an online writers’ group recently. You may be wondering that too, so, in this post, I’ll share the method I’m using now.
When I was using the free WordPress blogs (www.wordpress.com), I had access to limited traffic statistics on the main dashboard. Now that I’m using self-hosted WordPress (www.wordpress.org), I decided to check out Google Analytics. You can use your existing Google login information if you are already a Google user.
I set up my account on February 5, 2010. I can now see traffic trends from that date to the current date, or I can check traffic for a specific month, week, or day. Right now, I don’t have many e-mail subscribers. If I only used that number to measure my following, I might get discouraged in a hurry. However, when I post new material, I announce it on Twitter and Facebook. A few days later, I go to Google Analytics and examine the traffic. Most of the time, I get a bump in visitors during the 24-hour period following the Twitter/Facebook post.
Click this link to go to a screenshot of my dashboard showing traffic trends on my blog over about 6 weeks. I’m amazed at the total number of visits. Sure, some power bloggers probably have much more traffic, but I’m please with what I’ve seen so far. When the trend line goes down, I know it’s time to do more promotion.
I’m still trying to learn how to use the many tools available to me on Google Analytics. Of course, Google has a help section, but I’m using the following list of articles to help me understand it better.
Readers, if you use another traffic analysis tool, let me know by commenting on this post. If you are interested in writing a guest post for this blog, contact me at akinemily[a]gmail.com.
How-to articles online:
Eisenberg & Associates article dated Feb. 5, 2010
Beginner how-to article by Sami Carroll dated November 11, 2009 and follow-up article dated January 12, 2010