Track Your Websites with Analytics

Almost everyone has a blog or personal website. Wouldn't it be cool if you could tell how many people are visiting your site, where they came from, and how long they stayed? For those of you who aren't web designers, it probably sounds like a lot of work, but I'm going to show you how to do it on your blog in under 10 minutes. Like most things discussed on Double Stamp, it's entirely free.

A web visitor tracking system is often called an "analytics" system. It allows you to find out the following:

• How many visits your site/blog is getting.
• Where your visitors are geographically located.
• Where your traffic is coming from (other sites, search engines, etc).
• How long visitors are staying on your site.
• Much more.
  

"Google Analytics" is a free system that is simple to use/install, and has tons of features. I use it here on Double Stamp, and it's powerful enough to track corporate websites that rely on web statistics to drive their sales. While there are other analytics systems that you can use, Google's is very powerful, clean, and free of charge.

Here's how you would set up Google Analytics to track your Blogger blog.

1. Sign up for the service at http://www.google.com/analytics
   
2. Click on "Add Website Profile"
3. Check the box that says "Add a Profile for a new domain" and then enter the URL of your blog.
4. Copy the code that is given on the next page. It looks like this:
   
   
   
5. Open your blogger page and go to your settings.
6. Click on the "template" tab. Click on "Add a page element" at the bottom of your blog. Don't add it to the sidebar.
7. Choose the "HTML/Javascript" element to add it to the page.
8. Don't enter a title. Paste the code that you copied from google analytics into content. Click "Save Changes. It should look like this:
   

That's it! You can now track who is visiting your site by logging into www.google.com/analytics and navigating through the data. Here's an example screenshot of the number of visits during the month.


Here's a location map for visitors coming from the state of Utah.
Don't be afraid to poke around the system and find out about numerous other features. As always, read through the help files to get up-to-speed. To install Google Analytics on a site other than blogger, just read the how-to on the Analytics page. Enjoy!

Blog Readers, Read Up!

The latest craze on the internet is blogs. Blogs are simply websites that make it easy for you to post articles or journal type entries for the public to see. Most of you probably have your own blogs, and read others on a regular basis. Hey! You're reading one right now!

No offense, but most of you probably read blogs the old fashioned, clunky way. You probably check the blogs multiple times, only to find out that the author hasn't created a new entry. You check back over and over, waiting for a new post. If you visit multiple blogs a day, you probably spend a lot of time "checking" the sites, only to find out that one or two of them actually have a new article to read. Don't you wish that there was an easier way to find out where new material has been posted?

Well, there is. I posted a Double Stamp article a long time ago called "Introduction to Web Feeds." Web feeds allow to to "subscribe" to a website's content. Instead of re-explaining how it works, I encourage you to check out my previous article and try it out with the blogs that you are reading. It will make your reading MUCH easier. Now your friends and family who "don't have time to read your blog" have no excuse!

Look, blogs are here to stay. You might as well learn how to read em' right.