Since February 2nd, 64 people have visited my blog. 74% have visited only once (I guess that's not so good), but there are 22 people who have been here several times. On the average, I have 3 visitors a day (2.74 visitors a day, to be precise), which is great, except for Wednesday 11th February, when no one came. I wonder why no one came on 11th February, but I guess I'll never get an answer to that. Where were YOU on 11th February?!
I don't know what to make of this data. I have never been very good at maths and I am not a great believer in statistics. Still, I am really, really happy that there are people out there who are reading this. We assume (wrongly) that all our visitors will leave a comment. Of course, very few of them do. Another thing I noticed is that the readers don't stay long (some two minutes on the average). That is disappointing, of course, but I often rush through other people's blogs myself. As I have said before, a blog is not a novel. You don't want to spend hours on it.
How have these people found me? As I have expected, my visitors are involved in the same projects as myself - 31 Day Challenge, EVO sessions, especially BaW09. Twitter and my Netvibes page seem to be responsible for bringing a few visitors to my blog. However, 43% came to me over Google search.
The thing I should be really interested in is what gets read. Not surprisingly, A Blogger's Day in Hell was viewed 22 times (thanks, Sue, for linking to this post), the About me page got 8 visits, My First Podomatic Experience was viewed 5 times (and most visitors left a comment, but then I asked for help with this post, so it doesn't count). Motivation was viewed 6 times (I am still hoping to start a discussion there). The biggest surprise is the post about My Most Embarrassing Experience. I have never been very fond of this post. In fact, it was an assignment (the idea was to engage readers to share personal stories), but I wasn't too happy with how I had done it. So, how come it got visited 25 times? 25 unique pageviews! Why? Is it because people like to read this kind of personal stuff? Would I have read such a post? I guess the answer is "Yes". Or maybe, as one look at Keywords reveals, someone was looking for the embarrassing experience stories.
Analytics is really great. It has made me feel more confident, but it has also made me reflect more on who my readers are and what they are looking for. Of course, it has managed to confuse me even further, but that's another story.
What links here:
Somewhere Between Days 11 and 12
Days 6 and 8Multitasking
If you like this blog, you can subscribe to it via RSS or via email.
Days 6 and 8Multitasking
If you like this blog, you can subscribe to it via RSS or via email.
Once again Natasa you have made me laugh. Had a really good chuckle at "Where were YOU on 11th February?!"
ReplyDeleteThe key with Analytics is to remember that is gives you just one part of the picture and that Feedburner provides the other.
Majority of readers don't visit your site and will be reading in a feed reader such as Google Reader. For example, my personal blog has 612 people who subscribe in a reader or by email whereas site visits fluctuate between 40-80 people per day.
In terms of online participation, the rule of thumb is 90 % of people lurk, 9 % contribute occasionally and 1 % do most of the contributing. So if you think of that in terms of engaging with a blog only about 1 % or less would actively take time to comment.
PS your link was almost right you just forgot the http: at the beginning. It should have looked like this - "http://lunas994.blogspot.com/2009/02/back-to-day-11-analysing-analytics.html" - normally I just open up the post and copy the entire URL - makes it easier for me
Thank you Sue. The statistics made me feel so bored that I had to say something unexpected to wake myself up. On the other hand, I feel it is very useful to do this kind of analysis. Thank you for reminding me of the difference between visiting a site and reading a blog in a feed reader. I wasn't thinking of that.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the link - I need to practise. Right now, HTML and I don't seem to get on. I need to learn more.