Effectively tracking the momentum of your blog's readership means having access to statistics about who's visiting, where they're coming from, where they're going, and much more. Two of the most popular free stat services are Sitemeter and StatCounter. Sitemeter is the default stat service for beginning bloggers, but it probably shouldn't be.
Though I ran Sitemeter exclusively for more than two years, I've been running both on Baby Cheapskate for a couple of months now to see which I liked better. More and more I've found myself depending on StatCounter. Why?
- StatCounter consistently shows me a higher number of readers than Sitemeter by anywhere from 1% to 10%. I don't know why. I'm sure it's a result of how the data is gathered. Whatever the reason, tell me I have ten percent more readers and I'm yours!
- StatCounter tells you more of what you need to know. You get to find out, for example, which of your posts were most popular and which keywords visitors used to find your site--important stuff.
- With StatCounter's free version you get information about the last 500 clicks to your site. With Sitemeter's free version you're limited to the past 100.
- StatCounter does a great job of explaining how they gather stats and how you can use them. Sure, the explanations clutter the page, but what can you do?
- StatCounter lets me switch back and forth from looking at Baby Cheapskate stats to looking at BlogCoach stats. No need to sign in and out.
- No need for the little green box at the bottom of my site! StatCounter lets you choose an "invisible" counter.
- I don't have to wait for Sitemeter's ads to load at the top of the page.
And here's Sitemeter's Summary page:
Two Sitemeter functions that I find myself continuing to use are Referrals and Outclicks. I like to see where people are coming from and where they go when they leave. I find Sitemeter's cleaner layout allows me to access that information more quickly.If you want even more detail, there are two other services to consider:
- Google Analytics (Very detailed stats. Integrates with AdSense)
- PMetrics (Provides tons of info about your traffic)
17 comments:
I'm currently using Google Analytics and really like it. I also tried PMetrics for a free trial of the Premium Service and loved it. The free version (basic) I didn't think was really any better than Google Analytics. Since I don't want to pay for stats Google Analytics works for me.
I've been using StatCounter since I started my first (family) blog about four years ago. I assumed that I was really behind the times and that Sitemeter *must* be better since I see all those green boxes. I've been very happy with it and the stats that FeedBurner gives me (although they leave me feeling very wanty on the 'site visitors' side!)
Ditto mommio above. I always thought someday I should be "upgrading" to Sitemeter, but never knew why. This is good to hear. I've actually been thinking about (gulp) starting to pay for more data... haven't checked out whether this is worth the money.
Have you, um, figured out how to track outclicks using Google Analytics? If so, I'd love a tutorial - I tried once but was unsuccessful, and this would be very useful information to have.
Thanks for the comparison, hey if I can get 10% more readership counted, I am there! I have sitemeter now and it is o.k., but will check out the other!
Great info! Thanks.
Thanks for the comparison! I'll give StatCounter a try. I've been using Google Analytics. One thing I don't like is that it's not real-time (updated once a day). Are StatCounter or SiteMeter real-time? Or do you know if that even an option with the other tools?
Both are real time. I find that StatCounter's a little faster with the updates than Sitemeter.
Angie,
Thanks so much for the info. I've only had my business blog for a few months and started with Sitemeter. I'm going to check out StateCounter now...I've never even heard of it until now.
Thanks!
Thank you so much for the information. I have been using sitemeter, but I will give statcounter a try.
i agree. i just switched to statcounter and it's so much easier to use with more information.
I used to use SiteMeter exclusively. Then I added a new blog to StatCounter and realized that they are rolling out an "exit links" tracker, including "exit link activity" and exit link rankings. For Blog Nosh Magazine (the new blog), it's important for me to know that our readers are actually visiting the author's blogs.
Needless to say, I use StatCounter almost exclusively now. The new changes (which are still rolling out) make it far superior, in my opinion. In fact, I'm adding a second StatCounter code to Velveteen Mind just so that I can gain access to the exit link tracking immediately, without waiting for them to get around to upgrading my site automatically with the rollout.
Great post, by the way. I love this stuff.
I use sitemeter, but I've wanted to add something else to track more. Thanks for the comparison, Angie. I'll try StatCounter.
Thanks! I have been using Sitemeter, but just now added StatCounter. I think it will be much better.
Is there some sort of blog etiquette when it comes to moving your blog and your stat counter? I’m moving my blog - however it is not really a new blog...same articles, same theme, same name. Is it ok to move the stat counter (I’m up to 43,000 - it would be sad to lose that). Or, should I start at 0?
Do you mean just move the code to your new template? Definitely do that if you can. As you said, it's the same blog.
I read several blog out there mention that sitemeter crashes Internet Explorer browser, is that true?
Imhaya,
I don't know of any problems like that.
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