Whether or not you’ll admit it, every blogger occasionally heads over to the statistics page of their blog to see the total views it has received or how many visits you’ve had the day before. It can be enjoyable to see those numbers, but they can also be a source to improving your blog, which might result in even more page views. Do you know which articles get the most visits or what people have searched on to find your blog? In this installment of blogging tips let’s take a look at the various statistics which WordPress provides and how you can use these to your advantage.
When you head over to the stats page you can view a lot of information. The first thing you will see is a big graph overview of all the views your blog has received. It’s nice to be able to see those numbers and can definitely boost your ego when you see a big spike in the numbers. The numbers are meaningless however if you don’t know exactly what makes up that number.
Please be aware that the way you publish your posts can have an effect on how effective your statistics will be. If you always publish full posts on your home page your readers will be able to read the whole post, but you will not be able to see how many actually did, because your statistics would just show that someone has visited your Home Page. This however is something of a personal preference, but personally like the idea that my visitors can quickly scan through various posts and click on the one they would like to read to see more of it.
Top Posts & Pages
Hit summaries and you will get an overview of the most viewed posts during the last week, but you can also select the last 30 days, quarter of a year, a year or since the beginning of your blog. What I usually like to do is check out two of these periods, “30 days” and “Always”.
30 days
The reason to do this for the last 30 days is that it allows me to see if there are any new articles which got lots of views and it lets me know when readers like something specific. This allows me to do more posts with a similar subject. Of course I enjoy writing each and every post, but if a specific type of post isn’t read much is it worth putting so much time in? Not to me. Last year I tried a new series about actors in commercials, which wasn’t read much and I decided not to continue it.
Always
I check out these statistics to find out which articles get the most hits (above are the titles of the blog posts which had the most views). I partly look at these stats for the same reason I look at the 30 days overview, but there is another reason I do this and that is to make sure that these articles which are viewed most all link to other articles which people might be interested in. So the article The Story Behind… The Warner Bros. Logo links to other installments in the series and makes people stay longer on the blog. You want your audience to stay engaged instead of just reading a single page.
Do make sure though that you press the little magnifying glass on the right though, because some articles might have had an amazing number of hits, but currently aren’t read anymore. As an example let’s have a look at my blog post “If movies were titled like John Carter…”, which has had the most views.
If I look at the breakdown though, the following appears:
It had a huge spike for a few days (thanks to Reddit) and after this it wasn’t read anymore. So I know it was something which was liked quite a lot, but it’s an article I don’t need to update with links to other posts. I do know however that the concept of the post was popular and I might do something similar in the future.
Views by Country
The statistics also allow you to see where most of your audience comes from. Most of mine happen to come from the U.S, UK and Canada and I personally don’t do much with that information, but it can be useful if you want to expand your audience. So for example if you see that most of your readers are from Australia or India you could write something specific related to that country.
Search Engine Terms
Now these statistics show the way in which your blog was found and what type of search terms people used. It can show that people got to your site and didn’t find what they were looking for. Now these search terms can be weird sometimes and would be things you would never write about, but they can inspire you to write about a specific thing which was frequently searched on.
Hidden statistics
Remember that if you have people who subscribe by email or read your RSS feeds that you won’t see their views in the overview WordPress provides (although you can see how many followers you’ve got). In the end the statistics you should consider the statistics an indication, not the absolute truth.
Do you and if so how do you use the statistics about your blog?
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Honestly, I only head over there when people post about stats because I forget about them, lol. I am a terrible blogger. Also most people find me by searching for zombie sex or zombie porn…my parents are so proud I’m sure. 😉 Excellent article!
Hahaha, those are weird search terms 🙂 Just shows that no matter how strange your interests are there must actually be some places on the web which provides it 😉
Thanks!
Being a newbie at this thing, I really appreciate this post. Thanks.
~ Chris
Thanks a lot, be sure to check out the other related articles as well (forgot to add them before, have updated the post)
Fine piece, Nostra.
Thanks le0pard!
good info here Nostra, thank you for the useful tips. in the end I think you hit the nail on the head with your final statement. Well said!
Thanks T, I know there are some people who focus so much on their stats, but in the end I think it’s all about having fun blogging. Of course it’s great to have a lot of views, but I get a lot happier from comments and likes 🙂
Thanks Nostra. Interesting as always.
Personally I use my statistics as an excuse not to change the name of my blog. The number of hits I get from people searching for disturbing (to me at least) things must equal the amount I get for everything else combined. Most disturbing recent trend was people searching “was Tony Scott gay” after I posted my RIP post.
Hahaha, I’m afraid to ask what kind of search terms show up on your stats 🙂
When I first started blogging I would spend a lot of time on the stats page but not as much anymore. If people are concerned about the amount of hits they’re getting though, I recommend properly formatting the pictures they use. Put a title and even Alt-tag on them when you upload. The vast majority of my views come from Google image searches, which means that most of those won’t actually read what’s on the page because they’re just looking for pictures, but you might get a few more readers.
I will check them out in more detail once in a while and always glance at them when I open my dashboard, but I’m much more interested in the comments I’m getting. I do notice a lot of traffic from the image searches, which indeed are mostly useless…
“Prometheus for Dummies” is my most-searched-for term (by a huge margin) that brings people to TIWAM (and it’s the top result on google!) which is why I’m working on expanding my original post, and why I’m open to doing a similar treatment to other films in the future.
Yeah, I read that and those are nice articles. It can be an indication of what people like and if you enjoy writing it, it can be motivating. I have that with my Story Behind… series
Nice post Nostra.
I like checking my stats, but really because I like to see what trends are hitting and when. I also like seeing what the most viewed tags are, as thats a good indicator to me as to what I should think about posting next. At the moment ‘australian films’ are my most popular so I post a few aussie horrors and it seems to keep people looking. 🙂
Thanks Tyson.
Yeah, it funny that you can sometimes see that specific movie are shown on TV as you can see small spikes because of it. As long as you enjoy writing about the most popular subjects it’s a great way to build your readership.
I don’t have any ads on my blog and don’t bother all that much about my numbers. So I barely ever look at my statistics. But I know many people do, so it’s nice that you provide them with this help. Another tip is to use Feedburner. That’s what I used when I was at Blogger. You can also use Feedburner for a WordPress blog if you for instance want to keep better track of how many people that read your blog through a feedreader.
Finally regarding the habit of using “cuts”: personally I hate it. It forces me to make extra clicks when I read blogs and as a reader that’s annoying. It’s particularly annoying when the cut also is used in the feed. The less clicks the better. I don’t care about if it wrecks your statistics: the fact remains that it happens quite often that I don’t bother to go through and read the rest of a post if people have used cuts – posts that I probably would have read more of if I had been able to see all at once.
Following this I don’t use cuts on my own blog, not wanting to cause my readers this hassle. But in the end, it’s of course a matter of personal taste. I know there are a lot of people out there who LIKE the cuts and hate scrolling. I’m just not one of those.
I use Adblocker, so I never see ads on any blog, but I know WordPress places some on each blog. I could probably pay to have them removed, but never checked that out. Nice tip on Feedburner.
Very clear about your feelings towards cuts. If I look at the biggest sites I use they all use cuts and I prefer that way as it allows me to quickly skim through various posts and select the ones I like to read. If people are going to comment they will have to make the extra click anyway, so might as well have it with a cut. I’m in the school of not liking too much scrolling 😉
Great tips Nostra. I do pay attention to stats but not as much as I should. I think it’s a great idea to see what posts get the most clicks and perhaps do a follow up on it. Good stuff, man, thanks!
Thanks a lot Ruth. Hope it helps a little!
Some nice tips once again Nostra. I do keep an eye on my stats and enjoy it when they’re high but I don’t tend to allow them to have an influence on what I post. I think I’ve already got an eclectic mix of stuff that goes on so I’m not sure how I could improve on them. Still, you have me thinking now. Thanks man.
Thanks Mark! They can help if you don’t have inspiration 😉
I will admit that I have stages where I constantly check stats and then not as much. Great tips as I find myself doing those things about which posts are the most popular. I also love seeing some of the random search engine topics which end up at my blog!
Thanks Caz, I’m not as focussed on them all the time, but they can be very interesting and helpful. The search engine topics can be a source of entertainment 😉
It’s crazy sometimes what people search for. I have noticed that Top 10’s always get plenty of hits and Orlando Bloom is up there for the top searches for reaching my blog, which I actually find surprising as didn’t think he was thought about much anymore.
Thanks for the tips, Nostra. I admit that I check statistics now and then, but never analyze it. I’ll do it next time.
Hope they are useful to you!
Good post, Nostra. I check my stats from time to time, mainly to see where I am getting my traffic from. Sometimes I find some nice surprises, such as when people were dissecting my early review of The Master (all good things, thankfully :D).
Thanks for commenting Eric!
The one downside, okay one of the many, about using blogger is that I find their stats to be all over the place. I stopped looking at them because I can never tell how accurate they really are.
I don’t know much about Blogger stats, but that is annoying…why not make the switch to WordPress? 😉
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