About last year, I wrote a short opinion piece on my experience with Sitemeter and Google Analytics. At that time, I was testing out both services and was generally leaning more towards sitemeter for it’s simplicity and easy-to-understand statistics.
You will begin to see as you write more and more articles that you will begin to grow your organic traffic (traffic from the search engines), and it is really great to know where that traffic is coming from. It will help you write more articles that attract visitors to your site and will let you know what search engines or even what other third party sites are really attracted to your content. That’s why I must use some sort of service to track my article traffic and I highly recommend that you do the same.
So now that my business has grown and I have built quite a few more websites — I have found that sitemeter no longer works really well for me. The first reason is that in order to keep it free (which is always good!) you have to create a seperate account for each site you own. I’m not sure – but this may even be the case with their paid service although I think they were working on incorporating that feature. Secondly, in order to get a clearer picture of where your traffic is coming from you have to pay for their paid service — which I did for a while, but still could only see stats for one website.
Now because many of my sites are on the wordpress platform, it’s very easy for me to integrate the google analytics code (with a plugin). Adding the code in just the right place was always a pain in the bootie to me, but this plugin makes it so easy. More importantly, I can access stats and reports on ALL my sites from one location — and all for free.
Finally — now that I have given Google Analytics a longer look, I really like the service better. I know exactly where my traffic is coming from, what pages they are clicking on, keywords they are finding me with, how long they stay on the site, etc. It’s GREAT!
So having said all of that — I highly recommend Google Analytics for tracking the traffic to and from your articles. You get a lot for zero money. And isn’t that in the spirit of article marketing? 🙂
Lisa Angelettie
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It’s not quite GA yet, but it’s free and getting better: Piwik (piwik.org), an open source analytics program with a lot of bells and whistles. Installation is easy…and your stats belong only to you.
Renee Michaelss last blog post..Collectible Sports Gifts
It’s not quite GA yet, but it’s free and getting better: Piwik (piwik.org), an open source analytics program with a lot of bells and whistles. Installation is easy…and your stats belong only to you.
Renee Michaelss last blog post..Collectible Sports Gifts
I am a google analytics fan myself. I am using it on one of my sites to see how my adwords is performing and goal tracking is simply fun to use.
I know more than one piwik fan but the ease with which I can share my stats with friends or potential buyer makes GA stand out.
I am a google analytics fan myself. I am using it on one of my sites to see how my adwords is performing and goal tracking is simply fun to use.
I know more than one piwik fan but the ease with which I can share my stats with friends or potential buyer makes GA stand out.
Hey Jeet. I agree GA is fun to work with!
Hey Jeet. I agree GA is fun to work with!
I’d just like to add that GA also keeps your stats private, so you don’t have to expose your traffic information to anyone who comes to visit your blog.
I’ve not used sitemeter so I can’t say how good it is, but I found this site looking for which was the best GA or Sitemeter. I’ve been using GA for the past year and am very happy with it
🙂
.-= Sci-Fi Si´s last blog ..RE: Google: Enterprise business profitable; Says email migration ‘proof points’ building =-.
Absolutely – I forgot about that detail!
I’d just like to add that GA also keeps your stats private, so you don’t have to expose your traffic information to anyone who comes to visit your blog.
I’ve not used sitemeter so I can’t say how good it is, but I found this site looking for which was the best GA or Sitemeter. I’ve been using GA for the past year and am very happy with it
🙂
.-= Sci-Fi Si´s last blog ..RE: Google: Enterprise business profitable; Says email migration ‘proof points’ building =-.
Absolutely – I forgot about that detail!
I have just out Sitemeter on my Blog,I am also using Analytics but I have seen some Problems with it.I have seen Analytics Takes Hours to Update Sometimes and Have tried to Blog my Visits being Recorded by Inserting a cookie and blocking my IP Address Neither has Worked.Sitemeter Does this By Default so I don’t have to make these settings the same with outclicks. In my opinion use Both.I even use Lijit also and have often seen Search Results that do not Appear in GA
.-= Chris´s last blog ..Twitter Followers and Twitter Traffic don’t Go Hand in Hand =-.
Hey Chris. I do use both Lijit and GA, but have since let sitemeter go. I haven’t had much trouble with the updating although I don’t check my stats on a daily basis. Just once a week or after a specific launch. Thanks for dropping by:)
I have just out Sitemeter on my Blog,I am also using Analytics but I have seen some Problems with it.I have seen Analytics Takes Hours to Update Sometimes and Have tried to Blog my Visits being Recorded by Inserting a cookie and blocking my IP Address Neither has Worked.Sitemeter Does this By Default so I don’t have to make these settings the same with outclicks. In my opinion use Both.I even use Lijit also and have often seen Search Results that do not Appear in GA
.-= Chris´s last blog ..Twitter Followers and Twitter Traffic don’t Go Hand in Hand =-.
Hey Chris. I do use both Lijit and GA, but have since let sitemeter go. I haven’t had much trouble with the updating although I don’t check my stats on a daily basis. Just once a week or after a specific launch. Thanks for dropping by:)
List, great post, but could you please put a date on your posts? Very annoying to have to guess!
Hey Tyrell,
That’s an evergreen content strategy to not date your articles. Hope you were able to find what you needed anyway though:)
Lisa, if “Adding the code in just the right place was always a pain in the bootie to me” … then you probably shouldn’t be using the internet.
Oh please Dave!