I’ve received a number of emails about web analytics, Google Analytics, Statcounter and so on and some of the common questions are: is it necessary to use Google Analytics to monitor blog statistics? When should we start implementing the analytics on the blog? Can I use another platform instead of Google Analytics?
I thought I’d answer some of those questions on today’s Bloggie Wednesday. Let’s get on it, stat!
So, is it necessary to use Google Analytics? Can I use another platform instead of Google Analytics? The answer is yes. However, I do find Google Analytics the best to use because of its accuracy, its popularity, its availability and most importantly, its affordability. It’s the most popular web analytical tool on the Internet; as such, it’s what brands measure traffic with too. If you intend to work with brands, then the best tool to use is Google Analytics because it’s a trusted source.
My main reason for using Google Analytics, on top of all that I’ve mentioned above, is that it’s free to use. It doesn’t matter how small or large your traffic is; that doggone tool will measure if you have 100 views a month or a million views a month. This goes very well with the next question on web analytical tools: when should we start implementing analytics on the blog?
I thought I’d give you a bit of background to how Beautyholics Anonymous was run years ago. When I started blogging almost 10 years ago (this was personal blogging and had nothing to do with the beauty blog), I didn’t know about Google Analytics. I stumbled upon a blogger using Statcounter and I thought I’d jump on board as well. I used Statcounter for years and when the beauty blog came about, I used Statcounter to monitor its statistics too.
The problem was, I had no idea how much my blogs would grow when I started using Statcounter. I signed up for the free account and it only measured up to 250,000 total page views. It never occurred to me, not even once, that 1) I would carry on blogging for years and 2) that my traffic would surpass 250,000 views. After that 250,000 views, it stopped measuring.
By then I had already been using Statcounter on Beautyholics Anonymous for about 2 years. I wasn’t avidly monitoring my stats back then so it was a good number of months before I realised that Statcounter wasn’t measuring my traffic accurately any more because I had hit that 250,000 page views threshold. I had to look for another web analytical tool and that was when I started using Google Analytics.
The transition from Statcounter to Google Analytics at that time was poor. Statcounter was also measuring more traffic on my blog than Google Analytics did. Which tool’s the accurate one? If it’s Google Analytics, does this mean my traffic reports have been off for so long?
To date, I don’t have an accurate representation of what my total page views are from the day I started this blog. I could only measure from the 2nd year this blog was running and I certainly couldn’t add the total figure on Statcounter to Google Analytics because the former’s stats measurement wasn’t as accurate as I perceived it to be (again, this was many years ago. Things may have changed for the better. I can’t be sure as I haven’t touched the platform in a long time). So do I even have a million views? More than that? Less than that? Who knows?
So, after all that rambling, to answer that question, it’s imperative that a web analytical tool be implemented on the blog as soon as the blog begins. It should start measuring on the day it goes live. Even if it doesn’t start on the first day, it should be implemented within the first 1-3 months and preferably no later.
I hope I’ve answered some of your questions on Google Analytics today and have found this post useful. If you have any more questions about it, please let me know in the comments. I might answer them in a future Bloggie Wednesday post. 🙂
Update: I feel that I should add this to the post – there’s nothing wrong with using Statcounter. It’s a good and easy tool to use. What I would suggest is to also implement Google Analytics to your blog alongside Statcounter. I always have more than one web stats tool on my blog just so I don’t put all my eggs in one basket. I’m currently also using pMetrics.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE google analytics. We measure hits quite frequently and I always use it as my weapon/whip to slap users who yell for front page real estate and do jack about it. I then kick them off the front page and tell them: Dude, your hits don’t meet the KPI. Better luck next time. Mwahahahhahahahahhaha. I’m not drunk on power.
When I’m bored, I also hop in to have a look and browse randomly. I love numbers and charts and graphs 😀
There’s so much more to Google Analytics that I haven’t even explored yet. You can analyse the crap out of anything with GA. It’s quite scary sometimes. 😛
I still use Statcounter. I find it most user-friendly to get stats at a glance. Statcounter has never stopped counting for me. It’s gotten me up to 14m views and it’s free. The only drawback as it were, is that it only shows my detailed results from the past 500 pageviews so I can’t go beyond that. However, I get summary stats from day one with no limits so I do get a general idea of the traffic trend year on year. I never quite got the hang of Analytics but I will agree that it’s more detailed. As for accuracy, I don’t think any counter out there is truly accurate because they have their own ways of measuring traffic info and who’s to say that A is superior over B? I do think it useful however to have both Analytics and an easy to read stat monitor like Statcounter. This way, you get info at a glance when you need it, and details when you want them.
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Damn, it still works for you? Mine actually stopped counting! At that time, I think we only get up to 100k views and it was stuck at that number for ages, which was why I had to quickly move on to GA. The graph showed a straight line during that time. GAH!!! I would have stuck with Statcounter if it worked because I found it easier to use.
Oh man, mine is not accurate either because when I started a blog, many years ago, unrelated to beauty at all, pretty sure it was only something similar to statcounter that sort of thing. Then I started this beauty blog, it was just an ‘online document’ for me and I did not think of applying a ‘counter’ right away. Blogging wasn’t like how it is now.. How much has changed!
And so … yeah.. my reading is way off… by how much also, I can’t tell you… =( shucks!! -_-“
Don’t worry, mine is way off too. No idea what the exact total page views I have since I started blogging. Oh well, no biggie. I’m telling myself it doesn’t matter and I’m sticking to it! 🙂
i have used both analytics and stat counter but i prefer the graphical and clean representation of analytics plus its unconditionally free!! i think its best to implement analytics after 3 months coz seeing 0 pageviews or 100 pageviews is very disheartening.
btw, there is something called awstats which is very good for people who host their blogs. it gives a very detailed and granular information for everything including server log files.
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Thanks for the recommendation Swati. I’ll check it out now 🙂