Blog Stats that Rock and those that Don’t

Posted on September 29, 2007

Doing the job of webmaster for a business-to-business website has trained me to be a web stats fiend. I daily check Google Analytics for the latest trends across all the sites that I publish or manage. The proof is in the pudding and stats give you some great feedback for decision making in what to publish, how to manage the layout of the site, what content to feature and generally how to focus ones energy.

The stats for the last 30 days have revealed some interesting trends and decision points for thoughtsparks.net. The report from Google Analytics is very telling in the traffic flow as the site has seen a whopping 100% increase from the previous 30 days.

StumbleUpon rocks. Do you see those major peaks in the graph? Those are Stumble surges. A full 688 visits to the site during this period came from stumbleupon. Stumble traffic average time on the site was 1:25 compared to pownce.com being 9:01, so there is some question of quality of traffic. The shear numbers however are compelling.
Blogrush doesn’t rock. Blogrush sounds like a great idea but the implementation seems to be a bit lacking with only 8 visits for this entire time period. I think at least for now their free advertising on my site is a goner. Let me know if you have better luck statistically with their widget.
Pownce rocks. Everyday I’m finding Pownce to be more of an asset, with great folks offering engaging conversation.
TechFires.com rocks. If by chance you haven’t caught wind, Scott Blitstein over at MyThermos.com and I have launched the site for rapid tech reviews.
YouMob.com rocks. This site referred 52 visitors to my site. Pretty cool.
MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog kind of rocks. Now don’t get me wrong, both sites have brought me some great blogging friends for which I am thankful. I just don’t find either site compelling to spend great volumes of time as a social networking site. I love the avatar system and check-in every other day or so.
Thereisnospace.blogspot.com rocks. The top blog referral site with 19 visits, this young lady writing from Dubai is a worthwhile read. She’s an original and engaging blogger.
Kellementology.com rocks too. Kelly is another one that is her own woman who is a pleasure to know and an interest to read. If you are looking for run-of-the-mill blogs, pass hers by.
Technorati and Digg aren’t rock’n. These sites seem to have too much gaming going on and I just don’t get into that stuff. I’d rather spend my time writing content.
Advertising isn’t rock’n. You could probably say because I haven’t given it a great effort, but honestly I get bored trying to manage it. I also struggle to find effective ad systems that don’t bug me. I regularly get offers for freelance web dev work. If I want to pick-up extra cash, I think I’ll just do some honest work and let you folks read my site without those distracting ads. I’m not anti-ads or anything, just where I’m at with thoughtsparks.net, at least right now. The main reason for hosting ads is to pay for bandwidth which may become more and more of an issue, but we’ll see.

In the end analysis, this site is not about stats but about readers, about you. It’s about "Igniting Ideas for the Common Good". The web stats along with your awesome, well-formed and thoughtful comments give me some sense of whether I’m on track or not in accomplishing this goal. Truth is that I gain more from your stimulating feedback than any ad system ever could. Thanks for reading and engaging.

So what’s rock’n your stats? Are you finding any social communities or bookmarking sites boosting your traffic?

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Comments

9 Responses to “Blog Stats that Rock and those that Don’t”

Asten on September 30th, 2007 9:38 am

I absolutely agree with everything you said LOL! I don’t do that very often with anyone

You didn’t mention MySpace (doesn’t rock imo), CafeMom (kinda rocks), Craigslist (kinda rocks, but pretty spammy sometimes)
Phil on September 30th, 2007 2:24 pm

Asten, yes MySpace seems to have lost its luster. CafeMom I haven’t messed with (I’m a dad). I haven’t thought much of Craigslist in terms of referrals. Interesting. Thanks for the comment and that’s cool that you’ve had similar experiences.
Cardinal Wolsey on September 30th, 2007 3:33 pm

Great post, very succinct. Blogcatalog introduced me to some good blogs including yours, but I get the feeling that a lot of users just want to build links/hits and don’t mind where from. As you say, the site is about readers, not stats! Have just signed up with MyBLogLog to give that a try. As a Stumble user, I like their model and have found some great sites using it.
Phil on September 30th, 2007 4:59 pm

Cardinal, Yes I actually signed-up w/ MyBlogLog first. You may have missed the badges on the right above BlogCatalog. I actually joined MyBlogLog first. I agree with you on Stumble. It seems more democratic than Digg or others. I’ve found some amazing stuff using it.
kellypea on October 1st, 2007 10:18 am

Phil, you are quite the guy making me smile on a Monday morning. Thank you very much for your continued classiness — AND good information! I didn’t know about YouMob and Thereisnospace, so I’ll check those out. And I’ve been lazy (OH REALLY?) about Stumble…although I have registered. I’ve also checked into Streamy because they referred over 200 to my site last month, and although I sent a request to join, I guess they’re in beta, so who knows…Now that my pout is over, I’ll do some writing today. I loved spending time with my fellow foodies yesterday, and you know me and food…*sigh* I’m going to have to declare a “Phil” day so that I can pull up the hood on my tech work (sorely neglected lately) and just apply all that you’re teaching here, otherwise, it will keep getting pushed aside. Let me know when you find a drive through where we can order a few more hours a day, ‘kay?
Phil on October 1st, 2007 11:15 am

Kelly, heard about streamy. Probably check it out at some point soon. Drive through, that’s pretty funny. Glad to make you smile on a Monday. We can all use one of those.
Ev Nucci on October 6th, 2007 11:18 am

Hi Phil, I see you found my friend Kellypea! You are right. She’s incredible.

I must say I love this post. I’m withya my brotha…Digg is outta here. Course once you learn your way around…you figure out how it works and it’s not that great!

But you know what I’ve recently discovered? Course for an old fart…it’s kinda cool…facebook.

You can read about it on my other blog, My Life is Murphy’s Law, http://wackymom.blogspot.com

Oh, at my website is www.nucciconsultinggroup.com

This was a great post. Thanks for the tips. I’ve gotta check out the pounce thing.

I kept getting all these invites for facebook…couldn’t be bothered, but I’m kinda liking it. You need to check out linkedin my friend! Read my recent post as resource economics.
Ev Nucci on October 6th, 2007 11:19 am

Oh, I linked into you by the way. Great stuff here!
Phil on October 6th, 2007 11:15 pm

Ev, Glad you appreciated the post. I’ve resisted Facebook as I want to keep focus on blogging and Pownce for Micro-blogging. It’s plenty for me in terms of online social interaction. LinkedIn is something I’ve been on for a long time, just hasn’t been a major stats driver to even make it on the rock/no rock list. I like it, just not finding it compelling in this realm of reference. I don’t spend a tremendous amount of time interacting on the site.