Why Bloggers Need Stats to Succeed

by Deborah Ng

I’m a stats junky. I check my stats several times a day to see how I’m doing traffic wise, plus for several other reasons. My stats tell me:

• Which of my posts are most popular – Knowing this gives me a good idea of what my readers want.
• Which keywords bring in the most traffic - See above. Knowing where my traffic comes from helps me to accommodate my readers.
• How many people stopped by in a day - If I have a very high or low traffic day, it’s good to know the reason.
• Who is linking to my blog and why - Wouldn’t you want to know what others are saying about you? What if it’s something that’s not very good? What if it requires a response?
• How much traffic is coming in via search engines- Knowing the search engines are sending lots of traffic our way is very encouraging. It means we’re ranked and it means when other people search for certain things they’ll find us.
• Did I hit big on Digg? How big? How long is all that social media traffic sticking around, anyway?

I can give you so many more reasons why it’s important, no…it’s essential, for all bloggers to have full access to stats.

I once worked for a website where the editor wouldn’t give up any stats at all. This was a problem for me because when I tried to land an interview or products to review, I couldn’t give publicists the details they needed. Moreover, if you host your own blog you will need stats for your advertisers.

If you don’t read your stats religiously, or if you don’t have access to your stats, you will never be able to succeed to the best of your blog’s potential.