KEYS TO BLOG TRAFFIC

ADDING IT UP

OVERVIEW
A counter of some sort is a necessity for your blog. It will allow you to monitor your traffic, to determine its sources, and will provide you with information that can help you to improve your blog to produce even more traffic.

GETTING A COUNTER

This ebook focuses on free traffic production strategies, so we are only going to address free counters and stat services. If you are running your own blog on a domain you own, your host may provide you with tracking tools you can easily use. These tend to be more comprehensive than those offered by free services and should be used when possible.

Free counters are readily available. Sitemeter is a popular source for free counters. You can find them at http://www.sitemeter.com. Sitemeter counters will let you know how many visitors you are getting, where they are coming from and other critical information. There is an additional data available to those willing to pay for an upgrade in service, but for many bloggers the basic free package will suffice.

Signing up for a free counter is an easy process at Sitemeter and most other free counter sites. Placing the counter on your site may require some manipulation of your template and will require that you copy the HTML code provided by the counter service into your template. Sitemeter, for instance, offers very simple directions on doing this for a variety of blogger sites. Those more experienced with HTML will be able to add the counter in a matter of moments.

USING YOUR COUNTER

The first use of your counter is simply to monitor your traffic. You will be able to find out how many people are visiting your blog, when they are coming and from where they are coming. Raw traffic numbers help you to determine whether your traffic building efforts are succeeding.

A second use for counters is to learn a bit about how people are finding you. For instance, if you check the referrers for your traffic using your counter service, you may discover that very few visitors are coming from one search engine while others are coming in drovers from another. This will give you an idea of where you need to better concentrate your efforts.
Additionally, the referrer logs will often tell you what people were searching for when they found your site. This can be very valuable information. If you notice an influx of people searching around a particular phrase, you may want to make sure to construct a post on that subject, for instance. It will also give you an idea of whether or not the people who are visiting your site are actually finding what the things for which they were looking.
Getting traffic is great, but it is even better when you know it’s happening. If you operate without a functioning counter, you will have no way of knowing whether or not your traffic-building efforts are paying off.

BONUS TIPS

1. Don’t count yourself! If you are frequently checking out your own blog, be certain that you take that into account when interpreting your statistics. This often occurs early in the lifespan of a blog when you are tweaking the layout, etc.

2. Look at page views! The number of people who come by your blog is important, but the amount of time they spend there and the number of different pages and entries they read will give you a really good indication of whether or not they are responding well to what you have to offer. Generally speaking, those blogs that post good page view and time numbers tend to have more repeat visitors.