Thursday, October 7, 2010

Google Analytics

I am so loving Google Analytics lately!  I have always wondered how people track their blogs to see who's stalking them...and now I know.  This whole time, I unassumingly figured my whopping 5 followers were the only ones who read my blog.  Then I added Google Analytics to my blog, and now I'm in the know!!!  For those of you unaware as to what this magic tool is, it basically allows you to insert an html code into your blog (behind the scenes) or website and does all sorts of cool tracking for you! 

When I first starting utilizing this tool over a year ago, I was able to see that other's were reading my blog whose locations all made sense to me...family and friends that I have in other cities across the state and a few in other states as well.  Ahhhh, how cool am I?  No, really!  My blog is cooler than I thought!  SWEET!

I just recently looked at my stats for the first time in a long time and noticed that I have had readers from 5...F-I-V-E....that's FIVE other countries!  Now I'm like totally cool!  Okay, okay, I know some of you are reading this going, 'Wow!  She is so behind in times!' or 'What crappy blog stats, and she thinks that's impressive?!?!'  And to those I say, 'Let me have my moment people!  Your blog came from a smaller place too!'

Some other cool things that Google Analytics allows you to view:
- Custom reports that you can set up and have emailed to you.
- Customized goals you set up for your site and then track to see how close you are getting to reaching your goals.
- If people are accessing your site directly, from a different site, or even by what word was searched that got them to your site!  (Cool, I know!)
- You can even drill down to the city...and even the hostname of the computer the person used:  For example, I noticed that someone living in Round Rock, TX has been viewing my blog more often than even some of my family members (odd!) and was intrigued!  So I kept clicking and voila!...it was someone accessing from Dell Corporation!  How flattering...REALLY, I MINE IT!  The fact that my measely blog, which barely even posts on a monthly basis, and is mostly about lame family events in my life is interesting enough to be viewed multiple times a week by someone from Dell Corporation...touched, REALLY! (Insert sarcasm here!)