Blogging For Dummies®

Chapter 15. Measuring Blog Presence

In This Chapter

• Figuring out what Web statistics tell you

• Checking out good statistics tracking tools

• Tracking the blogosphere for keywords and topics

For a moment, picture your new blog running just the way you like it. The graphics are pretty, you're blogging every day, and comments are rolling in. Everything looks perfect, and you seem to be well on your way to a successful blogging career. But wait! Now imagine that, for no real reason, over a few weeks the number of comments left on your blog each day starts to decrease. Your visitor numbers are down. There doesn't seem to an obvious explanation, and you can't imagine why your readership is disappearing so quickly!

If you ever find yourself in this type of situation and you don't have any idea why your traffic is changing, you'll start asking yourself questions like “How many visitors do I have every day, anyway?” or “How many of my visitors have been here before?”

For you, it's time to understand your Web traffic statistics. Web stats can be especially important for you as a blogger because your audience numbers are affected each time you post.

Paying attention to what your blog is doing on the Internet is an important task, but it can be confusing and boring. Spending an afternoon peering at Web stats, especially if you don't know what you're looking for, can be a tedious experience. It's like …well, it's like watching paint dry. But, it doesn't have to be as painful as it sounds. Web statistics ...