The Blonde Diaries

I’ve talked a few times before about how much I love my blog and how I love to write posts for my blog. I view my blog as a creative outlet similar to how some people use painting as a creative outlet or singing. I have also really enjoyed the behind the scenes aspects such as finding the right template to fit “me” as well as interesting plugins that create value added benefits to both you the reader and me the writer. Often times though I find that I have to watch what I’m adding because I have heard that if you install too many plugins it can decrease the load time but I think I am at that happy medium without causing too much concern.

One item I have been trying to figure out is my blog stats. I installed the usual WP-Blog Stats plugin and it allows me to see an overview of my blog traffic such as where my visitors came from, search engine terms, what posts visitors read, and if you clicked on a link I have in my blog when you left. So those items are pretty cool but the auditor in me has come out and wondered if there is “more” that I can learn possibly in another plugin.

The answer is yes and it is free!!! Statcounter.com is a free tool you install into your blog (either discreetly or obviously through a button) and it collects just about every thing you might possibly want to know about your blog’s traffic and visitors. You can see your stats in broad categories or you can drill down to specifics. If you are a numbers geek like me you can even import your stats to excel for further dissection. Overall, the Statcounter has been a really fun tool and one I recommend if you are interested in knowing more about your blog’s stats. Plus it is free so it won’t interfere with your budget. Awesome!

Tags: blog, blogging