Escape the Trenches of Being a Stat Junkie
8 December, 2008 - Blogging - 20 Comments
Photo by Denis Adam De Villiers
This is a guest post by Rowell Dionicio, a San Diego blogger who at www.rowelldionicio.com writes about technology, productivity and blogging.
I’ve made the terrible mistake of turning into a stat junkie.
That is, the act of improving my web statistics by all means and checking my web stats every 15 minutes.
The content starts to suffer by planting your head into statistics at an early stage of your blog’s life. All the while, no traffic builds and motivation is lost.
I’ve just joined the blogger community with my newly created blog. Taking tips from pro bloggers, I’ve decided to write on a niche - technology, productivity and blogging. More like three, right? Not quite because I tie them all in together with blogging and the bloggers.
After a week of writing three posts I began to loom over my site’s statistics. As I did, I wondered,
“Where are the visitors?”
Like everyone else, I tweeted, tweeted and tweeted about my blog. It was the first week and I was worried about stats. Big mistake for a new blogger.
Here’s a simple tip: Prioritize
A blogger must focus on the reader with quality content. That’s a must.
No content = no traffic.
I recommend sitting down for an hour developing unique, well-written articles. It will help any blogger grow a strong readership.
Restlessness will lead to failure
Be patient and determined with your blog. Success simply does not come overnight. Read your article and ask yourself, “Would I read this?“. Write what readers want to read. Web traffic will follow great content. A blogger must reel in the readers. Entice them with riveting words and facts. Take a stance on a subject.
As too much time is dedicated to looking at site analytics, the less you will spend researching for your next best article.
There are no conversions while staring at site statistics
Develop a plan to convert your readers. Offer a free eBook, video tutorial series or tips and advice. Stop wasting time pondering over pie charts and graphs.
Web traffic will come if you have set goals.
- Develop a ‘blog post frequency’ plan
- Write a guest post
- Interact with the blogging community
- Know when to check web statistics (new campaign, visitor research, etc)
Key points to register from this article:
- Prioritize
- Less on web statistics, more on content
- Focus on the reader, be the reader
- Be patient
- Convert visitors
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Posted on 8 December, 2008 by Jamie Harrop
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Excellent post, Rowell.
I have to admit, I still check my stats on a daily basis (each morning while I read emails and RSS feeds).
However, I only spend a few minutes doing so. I look at the basic numbers (visitors, page views) and then use Google Analytics’ link tracking feature to find out how many people subscribed to my blog over the past day.
Once I month I do a much more extensive stats analysis, but my daily check takes no more than five minutes.
Jamie
Thanks for posting Jamie,
I’ve gone down to checking my stats once a week or even less. Just decided to focus my attention towards writing more content and connecting with the readers and other bloggers out there.
Rowell Dionicios last blog post..45 Resources For Beginner Bloggers
I used to be a stats junkie, but I somehow lost that and now only check my stats every couple of days.
I measure my blogs success on the comments I receive on each post.. and the money I make.
Tom - StandOutBlogger.coms last blog post..4 Ways To Develop Your Unique Blogging Style
How much money you make really determines how successful your blog has become since you have to generate traffic with interesting and strategically placed ads, affiliate network ads, etc.
Rowell Dionicios last blog post..45 Resources For Beginner Bloggers
I use to check my stats daily, but now I check them about once a week if that much for my main sites. Sometimes I find I get easily distracted while staring at my stats so that’s why I stopped check so much, I would end up losing like 30-40 minutes a day looking through all the search terms that point at my site. Although some of the way people find my site is pretty funny.
Hmmm maybe I should make a post about the funniest search terms…
Nicks last blog post..NEWFOUNDLAND LOVE POEM
I used to get distracted too but looking at the search terms that led to your blog gets quite interesting. You should do a blog post on the keywords towards your site.
Rowell Dionicios last blog post..45 Resources For Beginner Bloggers
I work in search marketing so I can’t resist admiring, I mean analysing, my stats!
But really, I think it is actually very important to know where the traffic is coming from and what content / tactics are important from an early stage. This helps you to capitalise on what works and saves a great deal of time in the future by directing your marketing efforts in the right direction from the word go…but then again I love my numbers!
I don’t really agree with this: “Develop a ‘blog post frequency’ plan” …I think it’s best to write when you have something of value to say. If people see that you are churning out content daily for the sake of it keeping to a schedule, it might be difficult to maintain standards.
Cheers for provoking some thoughts though,
Ben
Ben McKays last blog post..Could you Buy or Sell Social Media Profiles like Business Assets?
Hey Ben,
“I don’t really agree with this: “Develop a ‘blog post frequency’ plan” …I think it’s best to write when you have something of value to say. If people see that you are churning out content daily for the sake of it keeping to a schedule, it might be difficult to maintain standards.”
Well, a commitment to post one quality post per week is a frequency plan.
I agree you should never put out content just for the sake of it, as may be the case if you write daily, but weekly or twice a week is also a valid plan. It doesn’t always have to be daily.
With that said, I still like the “write when you feel like it” approach. It’s worked for me.
Ben does bring up a great point and it doesn’t really matter what your blog frequency post is as long as you still blog at least once a week or once every two weeks if you want to push it.
There are times when we all just want to write something when we’re in the mood and there’s nothing wrong with that.
But if a blogger can schedule out his/her postings or even write out a weeks worth of posts and post-schedule them then he or she will get plenty of time to analyze their traffic.
Rowell Dionicios last blog post..45 Resources For Beginner Bloggers
[...] we saw Rowell Dionicio write his first ever guest post, titled Escape the Trenches of Being a Stat Junkie. It seemed to get a very good response from those who wrote comments. I’ve told Rowell he [...]
Agreed, writing once a week is typically not too much of a bind to get quality content out there.
Jamie when you say this:
“With that said, I still like the “write when you feel like it” approach. It’s worked for me.”
…you must feel like it a lot as you’re do tend to put a lot of (great) content out there! Good work by the way…
I followed your comment through from blogstorm and am pleased I did.
Ben McKays last blog post..Is Semantic SEO the Marketers SEO?
Hey Ben,
Thanks for the kind words.
Those readers who have been around here for the last few years will be the first to tell you I’ve had a few run-in’s with the mysterious writers block. But for the moment, I’m rocking away and loving every word I and my readers write.
Jamie
Wow you had writers block? I would have never known. You’ve been hacking away great posts for a while now.
Lots of great stuff on your blog.
Rowell Dionicios last blog post..45 Resources For Beginner Bloggers
Not recently, Rowell, but it’s happened a couple times in the past.
Thanks for the kind words.
When you have a brand new blog, it can be tough to look at your stats and see only trickles of traffic, in fact, it can be depressing and cause loss of motivation.
I know a couple people indicated that they look at stats maybe once a week. I go the other route, I look at stats daily. Reason being is that day to day, you can see trends in your traffic. Just to give one example, you may see a substantial spike in your traffic one day and it is worth checking the source of that traffic.
Perhaps someone stumbled or dug your post. If so, I feel it’s important to thank them soon after they did do this as opposed to a week later. After all, they have done you a favor with the extra traffic. It is a form of networking.
Mikes last blog post..Postcard Snow Flurry
That’s a great time to check out your stats. You could even convert those new readers if there is a huge spike but for a new blogger to constantly check their stats can lead to less motivation.
Another way to efficiently check stats is to check the keywords people use to get to your site and turn some of those keywords into new posts.
Rowell Dionicios last blog post..45 Resources For Beginner Bloggers
Along the same line, not only can you turn those keywords into new posts, you can also try and optimize for those keywords and see if you can get a higher ranking in the search engines.
Mikes last blog post..Postcard Snow Flurry
There’s almost an art to web statistics and I use Google Analytics. There are some features that I still want to learn how to use. I also want to try to set up some sort of campaign to see how my readers go through my site.
All future projects.
Rowell Dionicios last blog post..45 Resources For Beginner Bloggers
[...] week I published my first guest post, Escape the Trenches of Being a Stat Junkie, on Jamie Harrop’s blog. I offer my blogger view of constantly checking web stats. There were [...]
[...] to your own blog. It’s a win-win-win situation. I wrote a guest post not too long ago for Jamie Harrop. I’ve found this method very rewarding and plus I made a new [...]