statistics

[Leslie Wright]

  How important are visit counters on your web site. What are the best ones out there, I am interested in finding the best one to use. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

[Jeanie]

I use cluster map. My WordPress blog has a plug-in that only I see. You can also have the visual map on your site. I like it because it helps me track where people are coming from and who is and has been on the site. It also gives you an idea about when people are most active on your site.

Jeanie

Twice is Nice Books

[Jess]

The Wordpress Stats plug-in is great for a general overview of which pages are the most popular, how visitors are coming to your page and which links they exit on. It's a good summary and overview, but doesn't cover everything.

I like Statcounter for something a little more comprehensive - where your visitors are, browser they are using, how they travel around your site - and that my minimalist sensibility likes that you can set it up to be invisible on your page.

But the King of all stats programs would have to be Google Analytics. This is completely comprehensive, covers pretty much everything you could ever want to know, including some things I have no idea what they are! I don't check it very often, but I feel safe knowing that it's working in the background keeping track of everything for me.

Ultimately it depends on what you want to know from your stat programs and how you want (if you want) to display that information.

[Alley Rivers]

Like Jess, I use Google Analytics for my stat counting. It shows me everything I could ever want to know about traffic to my blog. I have a visitor counter on the blog as well but I don't pay as much attention to it and it's placed in an out of the way spot.

What Red Read

[Leslie Wright]

Thank you , I will check it out. Can you tell me if this is a free service or a monthly charge?

[Alley Rivers]

Google Analytics is free. When I set it up I thought I had done it wrong, but it just took a day to get started.

[Leslie Wright]

Thanks again

[Daniel L Carter]

Hi Leslie. I use Google Analytics for my site. The information is great that they provide and it's free. You can see which city the visitor is from, how long they were on your site, whether they were from an external site like Facebook that referred them to your site or was it direct. You can see who is a returning or new visitor. There's a lot more but I am finding it very useful.

Blessings,
Daniel L Carter
Author of The Unwanted Trilogy

[Leslie Wright]

Thanks Daniel,
It sounds like Google is the site. I appreciate your advice.

[Daniel L Carter]

You're most welcome =)

[Tina "The Book Lady"]

I do other types of reviews & giveaways too and I've seen requests for all kinds of numbers. My google analytics shows "unique visitors" and visits - what is a unique visitor? I've seen requests for that info. And what does "bounce rate" mean? Also, how long are these numbers up and do they start over on a weekly basis or just keep adding on? I only added Goggle Analytics last week to this particular blog. - Thanks, Tina "The Book Lady"

192 Visits
142 Absolute Unique Visitors
622 Pageviews
3.24 Average Pageviews
00:07:28 Time on Site
50.52% Bounce Rate
72.92% New Visits

[Leslie Wright]

Thank you Tina, I just added Google analytics and find the information facinating. I do not know what it all means yet but it is cool. :)

[Daniel L Carter]

Well I am still trying to figure out what the 'bounce rate' means also but some of the other questions I can answer.

Absolute Unique Visitors means that is how many people (or computers) have accessed your site.
The 'Visits' are the total number of times your site has been visited whether it be someone new or a returning visitor.
Pageviews are the total number of individual webpages within your site people have visited. For example if I go to your site and then immediately leave I will register 1 Pageview. However if I visit not only your Home Page but also your Review Page and then your Contact Page my visit will register 3 instead of 1.
Time On Site is how much actual time people spent looking at your website on an average.
New Visits is a little tougher to explain since it compares returning visitors with the absolute unique visitors. So if I have 10 visitors in a day and 5 of them are new visitors for the first time then my New Visits % would be 50%.

As for Bounce Rate I think it has something to do with how long it is taking people to download the page or possibly people losing connection. But again I'm really not sure. I'm still fuzzy on that. Hope this helps some.

Blessings,
Daniel L Carter
Author of The Unwanted Trilogy
http://danielleighcarter.blogspot.com