Traffic is something that many people long for. It’s almost like a stamp in the book of your travel and progression.
The more traffic you get, the more successful and perfect you and your website are, right? Well, I’ll tell you right now, that’s a huge misconception that needs to be cleared up.
The Problem With Google Analytics
About every morning I check my Google Analytics account to see how my traffic is looking.
Your traffic is, for all intents and purposes, useless to the average webmaster. Unless you are selling advertising space, it’s really not important.
The reason is simple – your traffic is a whole. Now, you may be pretty confused what I mean.
You could get 100,000 visits to your website on a daily basis. That means nothing unless you have dedicated readers/customers who care.
I would much rather have 10 visits a day if they all are dedicated to my website and actually read my content.
Within that lies the problem with Google Analytics. There is no way to track how many of your visitors are dedicated readers.
What Do You Do?
I’m hoping we can share a close bond, eh? With that, let’s get completely honest with each-other.
I would rather get 0 unique visits to my site a day, so long that it means I have readers that keep coming back who care. Wouldn’t you?
So, what do you do to tell how many people actually care about your website? Who are the people who recommend you? The ones who notice you exist?
Instead of using Google Analytics, how ’bout you see who comments on most of your blog posts? Who re-tweets your articles? Who is subscribed to your RSS feed? Who tells their own readers about you? Who goes back to your site every-day?
I would rather get one person who does everything I just mentioned than 4,000 visits a day. The other 3,999 don’t really care as much, especially if they just leave as soon as they get there.
Conclusion
To conclude, Google Analytics should be something you look at just for a small measure of your over-all traffic, but should never be used in means of glory or pride.
If none of the people who go to your site really even care about you or your content, why take show interest in them? I’m not saying that anyone who doesn’t comment on your site isn’t valuable, but why get all hyped up about them?
I have people who have come back to my website over 150 times. Those people are the ones who I cherish seeing. They are the heart of my party. They are the whipped-cream on my sundae. Get the point?
{ 39 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Joe,
Your point is very much valid for a blog. But I think for other websites, like squeeze pages, sales pages etc, this will not always apply. In this case, Google Analytics can be a major resource for checking your traffic sources (which would be useful for taking further steps/action or changing your strategy).
For some people, this information is very much important. Because as you know, the main purpose of a squeeze page is to get people to sign up to your list. These would only visit your website once, and either sign up or won’t. If they do, then they will get continuous value in the form of emails, ebooks etc.
Kindest,
Nabeel
Hi, Nabeel!
This post was mainly targeted towards a blog, as you picked up.
I pointed, early on in the post, that if you are offering advertising space, or other things of the sort, Analytics is useful, but otherwise, it proves invaluable.
Thanks for the comment!
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..Blogging Tip What to Do When Not Posting
Thats why Google Analytics has goals set up so you can see which sources of traffic are doing the things you mentioned. Google Analytics is a great tool of knowing where your targeted traffic is coming from and where you need to do work.
That may be true, but I can easily manipulate the results you see. What if I go to your site, but have to go do something else, offline, for an hour? If I don’t close out of your website, it looks like I’m looking for an hour. Am I really? No.
Google Analytics isn’t 100% accurate, anyway. It might say you get x visits, but you really get x2 (squared).
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..Blogging Tip What to Do When Not Posting
But there IS a way to prevent tracking yourself – the Google Analyticator wordpress plugin removes the tracking code for logged in users. You can set it in the settings.
Gloson´s last [type] ..How to Generate Blog Post Ideas in Seconds
I agree. Even me, i can manipulate the results to share. There are many techniques to use and image editing is one. Buy anyway, any measuring tool can you share to us that is more accurate to analytics..
You should look under the Visitors menu for Visitor Loyalty > Loyalty – this will show you how many people return to your site more than once during the month. That’s one way to see how many people out of all of your visitors return often.
Kristi´s last [type] ..Increase Traffic and Authority by Listing Your Blog
That’s very true, but it doesn’t tell you how many people actually read the content?
Just because I visit your site 10 times, doesn’t mean I am going to read all of your content. Maybe I am referencing to it. Maybe I like your design and want to duplicate it. Google Analytics doesn’t account for any of these things.
Surely those would have to be edge-cases?
You can’t seriously be suggesting that the primary traffic for all sites are other sites trying to rip off the content or designers trying to rip off the style?
Sure, that may be the case for blogs about design, social media or online marketing – but for non-industry sites the loyalty tracking is absolutely a relevant measure.
hi Joe
i think we can use the Bounce Rate point as a measurement of reader’s time spent reading our stories
Julian´s last [type] ..Best Email Marketing Software with Price Comparison
Yes, but Google Analytics isn’t 100% accurate. It only can record bounces from certain points. So, it isn’t completely accurate.
I’ve seen people change themes, or even move the code around, and have their bounce rate go from 70% to 0.02%, or the other way around.
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..Blogging Tip What to Do When Not Posting
HI Joe . how you know t only can record bounces from certain points?
Hieu Martin@Blog Tips´s last [type] ..Four Easy Tips For Blog Marketing Online
I use bounce rate and the New vs. Returning tab in the Visitors section of GA
Shawn M´s last [type] ..Typography
As I said to the above commentators, Google Analytics isn’t accurate. If you do something like change themes or just move the code from one spot to another, your bounce rate can go from 70% to less than 1%, or the other way around.
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..Blogging Tip What to Do When Not Posting
Hi Joe,
We can all get too obsessed with the bottom line, the amount of traffic that we are getting as a whole without trying to analyse it in any way.
When using analytics, I must admit, I use it mainly so I can see where the traffic is coming from, whose blog has referred the most etc along with the bounce rate and % of new visits. If I don’t get any visits from a blog as well as no interaction from the blog owner or any of its readers then you can make the decision to stop visiting it based on the figures (not an efficient use of time etc).
You do get to know who your main readers are by comments left etc and these do need to be cherished as you can develop very good relationships just with your blog. But if you have monetised your blog, then the figures are also a good indication of click through rates etc for newsletters, adsense and so forth, shows you whether things need tweaking etc.
Good post, thanks for sharing
Simon
Simon Croft´s last [type] ..Social Media Marketing Mastery Or Mystery
I, too, check my referring sites. But that is all I check. By looking at who is sending me the most visitors, I know where to stick around. Other than that, I don’t find much value in Analytics because it isn’t accurate, nor does it show me what I need.
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..Blogging Tip What to Do When Not Posting
Joe,
You make some really good points. I don’t use Google Analytics, but I am a stats guy. I like to keep a good finger on the pulse of things and I think site visitor trends is a good way to do this.
I do like your point though. I still feel raw stats count, becuae hopefully a percentage of those will read your stuff and become loyal over time. You are right though that an active, caring person is worth one heck of a lot “potential” customers.
Your current loyal visitors should certainly never be ignored in an attempt to get more “potentials”
-Steve
Steve Scott Site´s last [type] ..Caution- Flesh Eating Zombies Ahead!
Hi Joe,
When I posted my July Month in Review post
http://www.bloggingfor.info/july-month-in-review-plus-tools-you-can-use-to-track-your-site/
I used Analytics to see what type of visitors I had. While my bounce rate was high from SU, I saw which content was in demand. This let me see what’s performing well and what’s not. I haven’t yet ventured in monetizing but with analytics tools from Google, Alexa and others, I have managed to understand conversion better.
Thu Nguyen´s last [type] ..The Growing Elements of a Blogger 100comments
Analytics (whether Google, Unica, Omniture, etc.) are valuable for any website that you continue to spend resources on (time or money). If your goal is to ‘engage’ visitors, then you can setup goal tracking with Google Analytics (or any other web analytics tool) to track how many times visitors comment on pages to start. Then you can do things like look at what sites are referring these ‘engaged’ visitors and focus your efforts there if they are places like forums or other blogs that you ‘engage’ at. If all you spend is time, then determine how much you think your time is worth and then use that to figure out how much it’s costing you to ‘engage’ each visitor. This is a small start and there’s tons more you can do. Keep exploring!
Hey Joe!
What you doing here buddy?! No surprise actually – you’re bloody everywhere mate!
I was going to start by saying ‘tsk tsk – you should not look at your stats’ but then you countered by saying you don’t care about the numbers too much – LUCKY.
I agree that it is frustrating, but what I find more so is the fact that even the stats Google gives you are all whacked out half the time.
Just the other day I lost everything and had to reinstall Analytics, it randomly spent a week telling me I was getting 30 visitors a day, which I knew was wrong, espeically since my admin panel in WP was telling me I was getting 170.
Anyway, nice to see you here mate.
I’ll pop over to websitebegin and say g’day.
Alex´s last [type] ..Article Marketing Part 2 – Quality vs Quantity
I am everywhere. Except your site… Wonder why… Haha, just kidding, buddy.
Analytics isn’t very accurate, adding yet another problem the chalk board.
By changing the position of your code, or how far it is buried below char-codes (okay, terrible humor), your stats can go way up, or way down. It’s just not reliable.
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..Blogging Tip What to Do When Not Posting
no excuses now, waiting on guest post from you…NOW
LOL, but seriously – I would love a post from you over at my site – I get good traffic and you’re awesome so why not!!
Alex´s last [type] ..Article Marketing Part 2 – Quality vs Quantity
I definitely value my readers. I have a few that come back on a regular basis, and I have new ones on a daily basis as well.
My thing with traffic is, I prefer to use stat counters as a means to see WHERE my traffic is coming from, rather than HOW MUCH traffic I’m getting.
If most of my traffic is coming from search engines, and they’re typing in the keywords “make money online” or “make money online free” or anything along those lines, then I’m almost sure they’ll be interested in what I have to offer them on my blog.
Where as, if I was using a traffic exchange (which by the way I think is useless), then my 26283 hits a day, would be most likely minimizing their screen and waiting until 10 seconds is over so they can move on with their day.
TriNi´s last [type] ..Make Money With GPT Sites Like SquishyCash And DealBarbiePays!
hope google bring some change in analytic too…..
Technoblogsite´s last [type] ..Why Google Will Ban Your Adsense
I have not experienced this issues yet but another issue is that I had no visits sometimes but it is because I forgot adding the tag back whenever I update my theme
Tinh´s last [type] ..PayPal Electronic Withdrawal Service for Indian Bloggers Now Resolved
Nice Guest post .
It is good to see a 13 old having good knowledge
Siva´s last [type] ..Disable Plugin-containerexe in Firefox
Very good point, Joe – but what does it matter, really?
I don’t think anyone’s got the answer you are looking for.
The best way for me to measure my ROI is by social engagement and sales.
Best,
Ana Hoffman
Ana @ Blog Traffic Generation´s last [type] ..10 Awesome Ways to Make NO Money With Blog Traffic
Well I also get confused with google analytics. I only check my blog stats by suing statcounter and I like it.
chandan´s last [type] ..Starcraft 2 strategy guide
Yep, I’ve kind of given up on checking the stats on Analytics. Instead, I focus on the click thru rate on specific links… gives me better idea on who are those who took actions.
Ming Jong – Quick Cast Concept Bonus´s last [type] ..If you register your site for free at
I agree with you completely on this point of view of urs.!
Mani Viswanathan´s last [type] ..DailyBlogging Traffic Stats for July 2010
I absolutely agree that I’d rather have a small amount of quality traffic than a large amounts of non-quality visitors.
There is, however, a very easy way to tell your quality volume – they’re called advanced segments and they can be overlaid over your traffic view.
You can compare your overall traffic with traffic that stays on the site for more than 30 secs AND views 2 or more pages.
In an earlier comment, you said that return visitors and time-on site could be just people leaving browser windows open, stealing your design or stealing your content.
You could mitigate against all three of these by specifying the segment to NOT include visitors who stay on the site vastly longer than the quality time-on-site average. If you don’t run forums or other on-site engagement that requires exceedingly long durations, then this will give you an accurate measurement of your quality viewer data.
If you DO have forums, then don’t include that negative parameter when viewing the forum URL.
Anti-service? You mean providing a free solution to thoroughly analyse your site and its traffic?
I mean, I know Ominture and WebTrends are great, but they cost a fortune – I see you’re using Analytics on your own site.
How do you feel let down by Google?
I see your point, and in some way you are right. I have one site where I have >3000 unique visitors every day, some of them maybe only one every week are great value to me. And I have a other site with <10 unique visitors every day, and 2-3 of them are are great value to me. I all dependent on who you want to go to your website, and what kind of ammunition you use, to get the visitors.
Soren Egstrup´s last [type] ..My attitude to win the day!
Hi, good post but u didnt mention replacement of Google analytics.
Is there any other analytic tool available to fulfill my needs.
Thanks
MazaKaro´s last [type] ..Twitter for Bloggers
Just to clarify for beginners, no stat tracker is all to accurate.
That aside, I’m thinkin’ one thing Joe. We need to either become good friends, or never ever meet. Thinking exactly alike can be a dangerous thing. LOL
I’ve been saying forever now that comments are a VERY underrated metric when it comes to stat checking/reporting.
Your point are also 100% valid regarding any social networks that work off “followers” of some kind…of course Twitter SPRINGS to mind.
20,000 followers in 10 minutes (lol) that couldn’t give a crap, or 100 followers over the course of a week or two that are actually paying attention.
Hmm, the slightest of intelligence and common sense says…..
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing´s last [type] ..Welcome To The All New DennisEdellcom!
I do not totally agree with your post.
I know you have a point in having much traffic doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have dedicate readers, etc. Well, isn’t it in Google Analytics a section called “Returning visits” where you can track how many visits are new and how many visits are old?
In addition, you can other measure here such as # of subscribers to RSS post, # of subscribers to your newsletter blah blah blah
Nothing is wrong with Google Analytics, just you haven’t utilized all the tools that you get.
There are books on Google Analytics that you can read to improve your knowledge. Nothing is serious buddy
we are all learners on the way to ultimate bloggers.
Mike´s last [type] ..All in one guide to increase your blog backlinks with CommentLuv
Definitely its a drawback of analytics but this thing will apply for blogs not for sites like affiliate sites, sales pages because these are only meant to drive traffic towards them nothing else.
Beside that Google Analytics is also not the perfect one to display statistics, it may not show you the real number which you might be getting.
Daisy @ Tinnitus´s last [type] ..Tinnitus Treatment Permanent Tinnitus Treatment updated Fri Oct 15 2010 9-21 am CDT
Very well written..Agree with the points stated by you
Salman @ Tech Crates´s last [type] ..Ipad2 launch – Faster than Tablets
The point is notable that Google Analytics is to late to show the statistics. But no one can ignore.