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Hey there all,
I, like many of you I suspect, am an analytics junkie. My question for you all is: When it comes to vistors, visits and pageviews in a day, what's the number that means the most and why? I'm curious as to your input so I have a better idea of what to put the most weight into.
Comments - self evident.
I agree with timethief. Visits and views just mean that people are curious. Comments mean that they like what they see enough to bother to comment. Or dislike it enough, I guess. :)
Good points, both. If you comment, you care enough to actually say something. Well put.
Lots of people comment, but very few continue to do it on the blogs; most commenting energy has been pushed to FB and Twitter recently, making blog comments worth their weight in gold.
My favorite number is the number of incoming links. Unfortunately, the counting of incoming links is from Google Blogsearch, and that's borked even worse than Technorati.
I find comments the most useful. It's also nice to see new subscribers, but that happens fairly rarely.
@lilysaurez Subscribers. An illusive species for me right now. :)
@raincoaster Really, in your opinion commenting is happening on social media? I mean, social media other than our blogs. ;) I wouldn't have thought of that. Interesting.
And if you talk about the counting of incoming links - do you mean webmaster tools? Or did I miss something big and important again?
Subscribers
@taletellerin
I concur with what raincoaster has said and we are not alone. Prior to Twitter and microblogging authority was derived from creating high quality content containing authoritative links that got comments and backlinks. These days we are witnessing the power of social media broadcast range. Tweets, retweets and “likes” are having their effect on linking patterns and the SERPs (search engine page results).
Patterns are emerging such as readers take the easy way out and retweet rather than visiting the blog, reading the post and commenting. Even those who do click into the blog are more inclined to click to retweet, like or share and less inclined to comment.
Bloggers are spending more time on social media and social networking sites promoting every post they publish which is by far a greater time investment than researching, writing and publishing a post takes. Consequently another pattern has been detected and it's publishing fewer posts with fewer words in them.
And then there is the change in backlinking patterns ... Read more in my post here > http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2010/05/02/social-media-and-seo/
@timethief Thanks so much for all the information. As always. I guess this new development has gone right past me as I don't read like that. When I like a blog post, I leave a comment. Seems much easier than to go to twitter. Obviously I'm old-fashioned. :)
@taletellerin
You haven't quite got it. Most blogger now have social bookmarks including twitter buttons or tweetmeme on our posts so after a reader reads them they do not have to go anywhere. they click the button. Also these days the first notice we receive that a post has been published may be via twitter rather than via RSS feed. Because the same social bookmarks automatically update Twitter an Facebook. Hence the traffic may come in from Twitter and not the other way around. In fact many blogger spend hours on Twitter and Facebook "socializing" to increase traffic to their blogs. What the blogosphere was like just 5 years ago and what it's like now are vastly different.
In a sense, the blogosphere was so social back then because it was the only option we had for socializing online, other than forums which usually belong to someone else. But now you can "own" your FB page, your twitter stream, your blog, your Stumble account, your Tumblr, etc. All different outlets for communication.
I love comments, but I no longer expect them to be on the blog. That's why i like things like Topsy, that post like a trackback to show how other people on other platforms are talking about you.
Where the conversation takes place is not so important to me, although it's nice if it's on my blog. "There's no such thing as bad publicity as long as they format the trackback right"
Seems like I'm not the only one who thinks Comment and subscriber are more important than pageviews.
No you aren't the only one. It all depends which group (loosely speaking) of bloggerd you ask the question of. Go to a make money blogging forum and take note that bloggers there are focused on "traffic" and not targeted readers who come by way of search engines looking for sprecific content.
Targeted readers are more likely to leave comments, become part of a the regular readers of your blog, backlink to your posts in posts of their own, become subscribers and are more likely to recommend your blog to others they know in the same niche. They will retweet to their own followers the links to posts of yours that they think contain valuable content.
The largest niche in the blogsophere is the make money niche. Make money bloggers are looking for ad clickers as their focus is on making money from advertising clicks and from affiliate link clicks and from text link clicks ... yada ... yada .. yada. Some have blogs equipped with PPC (pay per click) so they get paid for every click a visitor makes on their site. The make money blogs that have "do-follow" links evoke many "hollow" comments simply posted to get the do-follow backlink. Many also have "keywordluv" which allow the commenters to insert their "keyword" where the username goes on a comment form.
Here at wordpress.com which I refer to as being behind the garden wall we blog for personal validation. We cannot have blogger initiated advertising on our blogs and that eliminates the bullshit about making millions of line through pyramid and ponzi style schemes, keyword stuffing, search engine gaming, splogging, spamming and plagiarism are not the order of the day. We value targeted readers over traffic, and readers who leave comments, become regular readers and subscribers. We like it when they retweet our links but we don't devote hours of every day creating pseudo relationships via 140 character blurts like make money bloggers do.
@timethief I get what you mean about where you get the information first now but still. You can't read a blog on twitter so they still have to come and read our blogs. Which is where I'm old-fashioned because I would never click back to twitter - not even via a button - to leave my comment there. Might also be because 140 characters are way too short for me. :)
<blockqyote> You can't read a blog on twitter so they still have to come and read our blogs.
What I was trying to express is that many do not come to blogs to read the posts at all. They are followers who click retweet without reading the posts.
@timethief yeah I often see that re-tweet button on someone's blog...how can I put that in my blog?
Comments can many times be a curse. There are plenty of weirdos out there that once you start replying back to, then they start stalking you elsewhere making your life hell. I speak from experience.
I only look at my traffic once a day and that's it. I try to concentrate on other parts of the blog instead of who is visiting and how many times a day.
@timethief Now I finally get your point. But am even more confuzzled with people.
@pornstarbabylon Very wise decision about not obsessing over stats.
"The largest niche in the blogsophere is the make money niche. "
This is factually incorrect. Numerous studies over the past ten (yes, ten) years have indicated that the largest niche in the blogosphere is the female-dominated social blogging niche: people blogging about their personal lives and families, to keep in touch with friends.
The LOUDEST niche is the make money niche. But the numbers don't reflect the volume: they make up quite a bit less than 10% of all active blogs.
You're right. Thanks for the correction. :)
Sorry, this just sets off my alarms; it's like women calling themselves the "minority."
I would say comments and subscriptions would make me feel better.
I get a few hits a day, usually from people google searching something and accidently getting my blog. They may stay for a few seconds, realize it's not what they were looking for, and bugger off.
I have gotten a few comments after comment on a few other blogs. But it may have just been a pity comment, or just to be polite. It would be neat to get a subscription for sure.
Subscriptions are mysteriously elusive for me right now as well. ;) I guess, because most people who read my blog regularly are from wp and do it just as I do - by following my blog. Oh well, we need to be patient, I guess. :)
Comments are good. So are posts that link approvingly and thoughtfully to a post of mine.
So go check out my site and post accordingly!
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bokunosekai
pornstarbabylon
