It’s in a blogger’s nature to want to know how many visitors he / she is getting to his / her blog. Luckily, there are many free programs out there which provide this service to monitor your blog traffic. All you have to do is go to Google and type in the phrase ‘monitor blog traffic’, and you’ll be presented with dozens of different providers.

In one of my earliest posts, I said that I was using BlogPatrol to monitor my blog traffic, however, I stopped using them as their site went down a few times while I was using them. This had the effect of not counting the people visiting my site 100% accurately. So, I plumped for Google Analytics as my provider of blog traffic statistics.

I’ve been using Google Analytics for around three weeks now, and haven’t had any problems using them whatsoever. They provide detailed statistics for your blog, such as:

- Number of visitors;
- Number of unique visitors;
- Number of pageviews;
- Average number of pageviews;
- Traffic Sources.

These statistics are great for monitoring your blog traffic, as you can see the effects of your actions. For example, if I have an article published in one of the article directories online, then if someone clicks my link from that article into my blog, Google Analytics will tell you this. It will also show you how many people are arriving at your blog from search engines, using specific search terms. This is a fantastic way to see just how effective your blog is in terms of organic traffic (i.e. search engine traffic).

Once you’ve signed up with Google Analytics, you have to insert a small piece of code into the top section of your blog template so that Google can verify that your blog is actually owned by you. I inserted the code in my blog template immediately underneath the line that says ‘head’ (surrounded by <>). It’s really easy because even I was able to do it!!

To insert the code Google gives you, log into your Blogger account, go to ‘Layout’, then ‘Edit HTML’. To make sure you don’t accidentally lose your blog template, or delete a part of it by mistake, click on the ‘Download Full Template’ link and save it to your desktop as a back-up in case something goes wrong. This way, if the worst happens, you can then upload your saved HTML template back into Blogger, and your previous settings will appear again.

You also have to insert a piece of code into the main body of your blog. My code is inserted at the bottom of the page, and it’s invisible to me and you, but it sits there quietly, gathering blog traffic data. To insert the code Google provides, go to the ‘Layout’, ‘Page Elements’ section once you’ve signed into Blogger, and click ‘Add A Page Element’ in the footer section of your blog. From there, click on the ‘HTML/JavaScript’ button to insert the code, and ‘voila’, there you have it!

Once you’ve inserted the code, log back into Google Analytics and verify your blog. After you’ve verified your blog, Google will start gathering information about your blog traffic. As far as I can tell, your Google Analytics dashboard will update at the end of every day, giving you yesterdays blog traffic data. Over time, you will begin to see the ‘story’ of your blog traffic. Fascinating stuff!!

Here’s the link to get you started:

http://www.google.com/analytics

A great way to monitor your blog traffic, have fun!!

Related blog post(s):

Optmizing Your Blog Posts For Search Engines

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