If you are a blog owner and you are not tracking your traffic then you are not doing the best job you can. Tracking your traffic allows you to find out where your visitors come from, which content they are enjoying and which content is making them leave. If you are concerned about traffic then all three of those facts are required knowledge. If you are a blog owner who isn’t tracking traffic then here are three methods that are effective and FREE.
1. Google Analytics – This is one of the most popular traffic tracking solutions available. Google tracks just about everything you would need. You can find out how many people were on your site, where they came from and the keywords they used to find you in search. Unlike the other options I will discuss later you can also integrate your Google Adsense if you use it. The only downside is the stats are not real time and the dashboard can be a bit confusing.
2. StatCounter – StatCounter can tell you just about the same information as Google can. The type of information you can view is slightly less with StatCounter Free. To get to Google’s level of statistics you would have to pay. That said, the free version still tells you just about everything you need to know. As an added bonus you can also get real times traffic stats, so when someone hits your site you will know it.
3. Woopra – Woopra is the new face on the block. They do bring a couple unique twits to the table. First the downside, Woopra’s free option is only good for a certain number of page views, after which you must upgrade to get full stats. The free version will be good enough for most basic blogs though. The good side is Woopra includes a desktop client. This helps harness the power of your computer, as opposed to relying just on the internet. What that means is your flash menus and charts will load quicker and run more smoothly on the desktop client. Like StatCounter Woopra also keeps real time stats. One added function is that the desktop client will allow you to initiate a chat with your web visitors. I haven’t found a reason for using this yet but it is intriguing.
I am not making a case for any of the three above providers. I just want to let you know there are free options out there to track your traffic. You will be able to get great results with any of the above three, so what do you have to lose? Start tracking your traffic now.
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