I have numbers on the brain at the moment. First there was the scary task of processing two months worth of receipts from our sojourn in Europe when the A$ plummeted. Then I had to get my tax return into the authorities before the end of October (they sent me my refund in under a week – yay!). I am also conscious that I need to get on with my maths themed quilt for the next Twelve by Twelve challenge that is due at the end of this month. (My first attempts have been rather pathetic.)
However, the numbers that have been occupying me lately have been the statistics for some of the websites that I administer. I am not so interested in the actual headline visitor count but it is always interesting to see what posts and pages capture most attention, where people come from, where they click out to and how long they linger.
I use a variety of data collection and reporting programs and services to monitor my statistics. I like Sitemeter for checking stats in realtime and looking quickly at referrals and outclicks. However, the free version doesn’t allow much scope for analysing data beyond the last 100 visits or the last 12 months.
I really like real time IP tracking, filtering and visitor analysis features of the “Blogger” statistics plan that I have with Performancing Metrics. It allows you to “name” your visitors and you can see who is popping in to look around, even if they don’t actually comment or say hello. Performancing Metrics offer a free plan plus several premium plans. You can sign up for a 21 day fully-featured free trial to see what you think:
Google Analytics is another really powerful stats program. It doesn’t record stats is real time but it collects all kinds of interesting data and allows you to generate a range of graphs and reports. If you have a Blogger blog, then you already have a Google username and password so it’s an easy matter to create an Analytics subaccount. Then all you need to do is set up the tracking code and insert it in your blog template. Before you know it, you will have a whole set of new numbers to ponder and enjoy.