Free StatCounter – A Serious Blogger’s Best Friend?

Are Blog statistics important? Maybe – maybe not; it really depends on why you blog, the type of content you produce, and on your expectations for readership.

If you are a serious Blogger, you may have already concluded that the Internet playing field is not level; that your site cannot compete with corporate sites that specialize in the same content that you offer. But, there are exceptions – and your site can be one of the exceptions.

Great content is the critical ingredient in the success recipe. But, it’s not the only ingredient. I have a great many friends who are serious bloggers, who regularly produce great content, but whose readership growth does not reflect the efforts they put into creating this great content.

Anyone who has been in a management position is, or should be, familiar with this old truism from the late management guru Peter Drucker – “What gets measured, gets managed”. Having spent most of my working life in management, I can assure you of the general truth of this statement.

Measuring the performance of a business operation, (a serious blogger is in business, in a sense), and then acting on the results of those measurements, is critical to both the short and long term success of any business. Measuring customer expectations (and then listening to the customer), is arguably the most important.

We are all familiar with General Motors, a notable example of what can happen to a company which chooses not to listen to customers. Elementary analysis of customer expectations, appears to not have been one of General Motors strong points.

In order to be a successful blogger, and compete with “the big guys”, you need the ability to measure, and manage, your Blog’s important metrics. Since you can’t talk directly to your customer (the reader), to any great extent – I grant you “comments” are important – you need an unbiased tool, one you can rely on, which will will help you interpret your readers needs, wants, likes, dislikes, and more.

StatCounter is a free measurement and reporting tool (a more comprehensive upgrade version is available), which, if used appropriately, can help you measurably increase your Blog’s web presence, and help drive more visitors to your site.

Fast facts:

Free, Fast, Responsive, Quick loading and Reliable Service.

Invisible Tracking – no ads on your website.

Accurate real-time website statistics with detailed visitor tracking and analysis.

It couldn’t be simpler – pasting a piece of code into your Home Page starts the process which will provide you with the following information.

Summary

Popular Pages

Entry Pages

Exit Pages

Came From

Keyword Analysis

Recent Keyword Activity

Recent Came From

Search Engine Wars

Exit Links

Exit Link Activity

Downloads

Download Activity

Visitor Paths

Visit Length

Returning Visits

Recent Pageload Activity

Recent Visitor Activity

Recent Visitor Map

Country/State/City/ISP

Browsers

System Stats

As an illustration, here are several examples of “Recent Pageload Activity” from my site. Clicking on the graphic will increase the size, or use your Browser magnifier.

As you can see, just this one screen can tell you who your readers are, where they came from, what they found interesting, and more. To put it another way –in this case, StatCounter is reporting my readers needs, wants, likes, dislikes, and so on.

I use StatCounter every day to help me listen to my readers, and to determine what it is they need – what they want to read, and what’s important to them. Taking this small extra step, has paid off in helping me establish an Internet presence that might otherwise have been much more difficult.

If you are a serious blogger, StatCounter, used appropriately, can increase the pleasure that blogging gives you. After all, which one of us doesn’t like to see our efforts produce results.

One caveat: The free version of StatCounter is restricted to the last 500 web site hits. For most people though, this restriction should not be an issue.

You can signup for this free service on the StatCounter site.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

With Online Translators, Read Tech Thoughts in Hebrew, French, Polish……

There’s good reason why the Internet is called, the “world wide web”. It certainly is that. Yes, I know, the Internet, and the world wide web, are not necessarily one and the same. But that’s a purely technical difference, rather than a true functional difference.

English is the primary language used on the Internet, but it may surprise you that it holds this position by only a small margin, as the following graphic indicates. It’s inevitable, that as a percentage, English will lose this prime position.

I read scores of Blogs, visit numerous tech web sites, and general purpose sites every day (well, every evening), and it never fails to amaze me, how North American centric (including spelling), these sites tend to be.

There’s a disconnect between the reality of who actually makes up the Internet market place (by geographical location and language), and the North American centric focus of many web sites. If you were guided by these sites, you’d be forgiven if you believed that most Internet users were North American, and spoke English

But the following graphic, courtesy of Internet World Stats, certainly proves otherwise.

To assist those whose primary language is not English, a number of free translation service are readily available to translate Internet content to their mother tongue.

These translation services include Google Translate, (which can translate to and from, 57 languages), Microsoft Bing Translator, (slightly fewer languages), Yahoo’s Babelfish, and Babylon, which, according to the site has more than 800 language pairs to choose from.

The following screen captures show Tech Thoughts translated into Hebrew, French, and Polish by recent site visitors, using a free translation service.

Hebrew:

French:

Polish:

If you’re wondering how it is I know that these specific articles were translated, by readers, to these particular languages; the answer is simple – Statcounter.

Statcounter is a free website tool with a range of tools including –

Configurable Counter

Configurable Summary Stats

Popular Pages

Entry and Exit Pages

Visitor Paths, Visit Length and Returning Visits

Recent Page load Activity and Recent Visitor Activity

Country/State/City Stats

Recent Visitor Google Map

ISP Stats, Browser Stats and O.S. Stats

As an alternative to online translators, add-ons are available for Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera.

If you’re a Chrome user, then you already know that Chrome incorporates translation in the browser itself, without requiring additional plugins or extensions.

Note to fellow bloggers: If you want to increase readership, recognize the reality, write for the “world”, and be cautious of being North American centric.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

Free StatCounter Can Help You Manage Your Blog for Growth

Are Blog statistics important? Maybe – maybe not; it really depends on why you blog, the type of content you produce, and on your expectations for readership – most particularly on your readership expectations.

If you are a serious Blogger, you may have already concluded that the Internet playing field is not level; that your site cannot compete with corporate sites that specialize in the same content that you offer. But, there are exceptions – and your site can be one of the exceptions.

Let me state up front, this is not an article on SEO, which frankly, I consider voodoo, and in a broader sense – cheating. In order to attain good search engine placement, great content is the critical ingredient in the success recipe. But, it’s not the only ingredient.

I have a great many friends who are serious bloggers, who regularly produce great content, but whose readership growth does not reflect the efforts they put into creating this great content.

Anyone who has been in a management position is, or should be, familiar with this old truism from management guru Peter Drucker – “What gets measured, gets managed”. Having spent most of my working life in management, I can assure you of the general truth of this statement.

Measuring the performance of a business operation, (a serious blogger is in business, in a sense), and then acting on the results of those measurements, is critical to both the short and long term success of any business. Measuring customer expectations (and then listening to the customer), is arguably the most important.

We are all familiar with General Motors, a notable example of what can happen to a company which chooses not to listen to customers. Elementary analysis of customer expectations, appears to not have been one of General Motors strong points.

In order to be a successful blogger, and compete with “the big guys”, you need the ability to measure and manage your Blog’s important metrics. Since you can’t talk directly to your customer (the reader), to any great extent – I grant you “comments” are important – you need an unbiased tool, one you can rely on, which will accurately measure and report your readers needs, wants, likes, dislikes, and more.

StatCounter is a free measurement and reporting tool (a more comprehensive upgrade version is available), which, if used appropriately, can help you measurably increase your Blog’s web presence and help drive more visitors to your site.

Fast facts:

Free, Fast, Responsive, Quick loading and Reliable Service.

Invisible Tracking – no ads on your website.

Accurate real-time website statistics with detailed visitor tracking and analysis.

It couldn’t be simpler – pasting a piece of code into your home page starts the process which will provide you with the following information.

Summary

Popular Pages

Entry Pages

Exit Pages

Came From

Keyword Analysis

Recent Keyword Activity

Recent Came From

Search Engine Wars

Exit Links

Exit Link Activity

Downloads

Download Activity

Visitor Paths

Visit Length

Returning Visits

Recent Pageload Activity

Recent Visitor Activity

Recent Visitor Map

Country/State/City/ISP

Browsers

System Stats

As an illustration, here are several examples of “Recent Pageload Activity” from my site. Clicking on the graphic will increase the size, or use your Browser magnifier.

As you can see, even this one screen can tell you who your readers are, where they came from, what they found interesting, and more. To put it another way –in this case, StatCounter is reporting my readers needs, wants, likes, dislikes, and so on.

I use StatCounter every day to help me listen to me readers, and to determine what it is they need – what they want to read, and what’s important to them. Taking this small extra step, has paid off in helping me establish an Internet presence that might otherwise have been much more difficult.

If you are a serious blogger, StatCounter, used appropriately, can increase the pleasure that blogging gives you. After all, which one of us doesn’t like to see our efforts produce results.

One caveat: The free version of StatCounter is restricted to the last 500 web site hits. For most people though, this restriction should not be an issue.

You can signup for this free service on the StatCounter site.

If you enjoyed this article, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.