7 Website Statistics You Should Track

The majority of bloggers track how many people visit their blog each day which is a nice number to know if you are only interested in the quantity of traffic your blog gets. For those of you interested in improving the quality of traffic that comes to your blog, here are seven stats you should be keeping an eye on.

For Newbs: All About Web Hosting

When it comes to web hosting you have several options with the main two being shared hosting and dedicated.

Shared hosting is called that because, similar to a college dormitory, you share server space with other website owners. The cost of the server is spread out amongst all the accounts on that server which makes it the cheapest of the two choices. For example if the cost of a server is $100 and there are ten accounts on that server, each account would pay $10 for a slice of space on that server. Of course, the more space you take the more you pay and the vice versa.

Additionally with shared hosting the server itself is maintained by the web hosting company so all you have to worry about is taking care of your website. This makes shared hosting the best option for people with little experience with computers or who don’t have the time to be fiddling with server settings.

But while shared hosting is a source of money saving goodness, it can also be a source of teeth gnashing and hair pulling. Just like the party animal in the dorm room next to you can make life hell for you, shared hosting has its own set of problems.

Win a Domain Name at Namecheap

Namecheap is currently hosting a trivia contest on Twitter. Every hour on the hour they will tweet a trivia question and the first three correct responses will win a credit in their Namecheap account for $9.69, the cost of a new domain or domain name transfer.

Increase Website Traffic with WordTracker’s Keyword Questions Tool

WordTracker has introduced a free new keyword tool called Keyword Questions. What the tool does is take a keyword you type in, pair it up with a question word such as ‘who’ or ‘when’ and then generates a list of questions people have asked about that keyword. For instance if you type in the keyword ‘money’, you will find that people asked ‘what president’s face is on the money?’ 1,143 times. (Please note that the WordTracker database tracks queries for the last 140 days so that would be 1,143 queries over 140 days.)

For Newbs: Blogging Tools

While you could go your whole blogging career without using any of these tools, you will soon find that these tools will make life a little easier (and maybe a little more interesting) for you.
Traffic Counters

Traffic counters keep track who visits your blog. These counters range in complexity and usefulness. The simple ones only count the number of people who visit your blog while the more comprehensive ones will tell you how they found your site, how long they hung around and even what pages they looked at. This information allows you to see what content on your blog is drawing in the traffic and tailor your blog accordingly.

Most bloggers use Sitemeter, Statcounter or Google Analytics. All three are free, easy to use and offer detailed information about your website’s traffic.