A question which is careening around the blogosphere is whether writers, especially new writers, should blog.
That's not what this post is about. This post is about how to determine how much traffic your blog gets.
Why should you care about how much traffic your blog gets?
You might not. If you write solely for personal edification, or as part of your writing routine, then how much traffic your blog gets is irrelevant.
On the other hand, if you're thinking about using your blog as part of your writing platform then it may help to know.
You might also wonder if having a blog at all is the best use of your time; perhaps you'd be better off devoting your spare time to Facebook or Twitter. By comparing your blog's traffic to the blogs of other writers you can get a feel for what you'd like your goals to be.
Alexa.com
Alexa.com allows you to see how much traffic your site gets relative to other sites.
For instance, the most popular site on the internet is Google, the second is Yahoo. There are over 300 million website in the world so if your world Alexa ranking is 3 million or less you're in the top 1%! congrats!
So, for instance, Copyblogger.com has very high traffic. Don't feel at all intimidated by not having these numbers. If you're only one person blogging and you have a limited budget there's no way you'll ever see anything close to that kind of traffic.
Two of the most popular blogs on writing are Joe Konrath's and Jane Friedman's. Still, though, their numbers are insanely high and they've been blogging for years.
Find your alexa.com traffic rank
In order to find out your Alexa.com traffic rank go to Alexa.com and enter your domain name (for example, mydomain.com). If the blog is indexed you'll get two numbers, your worldwide Alexa traffic rank and your US traffic rank. You'll also be told how many websites link to your own.
If you click the link embedded in your domain name you'll be given a more detailed analysis based on data from the last three months.
Things to remember
- When it comes to your traffic rank, the lower the number the better.
- If your global traffic rank is 3,000,000 or lower, you're in the top 1% of blogs.
- Go here and enter your domain name to find your traffic ranking. After you've done that, press "Get Details" for a more detailed analysis.
What do you think of Alexa.com? Were you surprised by your Alexa traffic rank? Are you glad you know?
Other articles you might like:
- Using Language To Evoke Emotion- C.J. Lyons Discusses Whether Amazon KDP Select Is Worth The Price Of Exclusivity
- Short Story Structures: Several Ways Of Structuring Short Fiction
Photo credit: "The Decisive Moment..." by Thomas Leuthard under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.
Ranking seems such a grey area at times. The past month my page view stats have gone sky-high, but at the same time I'm being bombarded with spam. I assume that's the cause? If it is, can that create an artificial page ranking?
ReplyDeleteReading about this online brings dozens of different answers and it's hard to know if any are true or not :)
The blogger page view stats? I started to have a problem with spam a month or two ago, then I disallowed anonymous posting, but I didn't notice a difference in my pageview stats. Interesting.
DeleteSpam might to be the cause. IF spam is the cause my guess is that the average time spent on your site will be a second or two--that would (obviously) point to the work of bots.
Do you have Google Analytics set up for your site? Google Analytics will give you this kind of data.
I hope you don't mind, I peeked at your Google Page Rank, which is 3, and that is very good for a relatively young site (which I'm guessing yours is?).
It seems that folks are finding and reading your site! :-)
Yeah, sorry, I did mean the page view stats which coincided with the spam blitz on my blog. Possibly not related. I should be more positive and attribute it to better writing :)
DeleteYes, it seems the Blogger defences regarding spam has been breached lately, as a lot gets through to the blog itself. I might start your method and moderate comments. Wheel out a few more defences!
I do have Analytics. I really should do some investigating myself, shouldn't I? Mine has average visit duration at 3 minutes. I might look into it more, now that you've reminded me of it!
It's just on three years for my blog, so I don't think it's that young? What I will do though, is take my Google Page Rank. Thanks!
Thanks also for this post. Alexa is another thing I'll keep an eye on in the future :)
"I should be more positive and attribute it to better writing :)"
DeleteI think it's your blog, it's catching on. It takes time for readers to find it. Congrats! ;-)
"Mine has average visit duration at 3 minutes."
That's excellent! Another thing you can look at to see if you're getting spammed is watch where the visits are coming from. If there is a sudden change in your demographics then that's a tip off.
"... three years ..."
No! No, that's not a young blog. Your blog looks great, it's doing very well.
Thanks for your comments. :-)
Yes, I've just spent some time looking at Analytics and there's an enormous number in the 'under 10 second' bracket. Certainly it's looking like spam to me! There I was feeling so good, I lay back in my toga waiting to be fed grapes, basking in this imagined blog success. Little did I know, it was only bots!
DeleteThree years? It feels like thirty :) Regarding blogging, I equate it with talking to myself. It's hard to know who's reading, who's actually liking things, who's anything, as there's minimal feedback. I must be doing it for the love :)
Thanks for your replies and also to your blog. I'm getting some good ideas coming here!
"I lay back in my toga waiting to be fed grapes, basking in this imagined blog success."
Delete(laugh) BTW, did you ever watch Field of Dreams (corn farmer builds a baseball diamond in his field)? "If you build it, they will come."
I think that's true for blogging.
"Regarding blogging, I equate it with talking to myself."
Me too! Especially in the beginning. I didn't know anything about analytics back then so had no idea if anyone was reading my blog posts. I remember the first comment I received.
I sprang out of my computer chair, punched the air and had a perma-grin for the rest of the day. Why? Because someone had read my post!
I think that's the day I got addicted to blogging.
I've had the Alexa tool bar installed for about a year now. This enables me to see the ranking of every site I land on. Sometimes it is surprising--ones I think will be very high are not. And, its also all relative--my own ranking dips and surges. I'm trying to not pay too much attention to it, trying being the operative word.
ReplyDelete"I'm trying to not pay too much attention to it, trying being the operative word."
DeleteI'm thinking of getting the Alexa toolbar. But, as you say, it might be hard not to obsess then. I try to check my Alexa score only once every 3 months or so.
But, like you said, "try" is the operative word there. ;)
Nice to know I'm not alone! :-)