As I have viciously stated in Step 1 of my blog creation guide, the success of your blog depends only on the number of visitors that you rake in. After setting up your blog, you will need a way to track your progress. There are two website statistic tools I am using right now, and I’ll begin with my favorite: Sitemeter.

Advantages:

  • easy to install
  • real-time tracking of your website’s no. of visitors and no. of page views
  • graphical reports for your daily and monthly visits, page views, and other data
  • a Who’s On button where you can check who’s currently viewing your website
  • easily check where your traffic is coming from(i.e. search engines, blog links)
  • track everything about your visitor(i.e. their geographical location, IP address, clicks, browser specs, OS, language, Internet Service Provider)
  • it’s modestly accurate, when you compare it to your Google Analytics data
  • it’s FREE

    • Need I say more? Just get it.

    Steps in Setting Up Sitemeter on your Blog
    1) Go to http://www.sitemeter.com/

    2) Sign-up for a Free Account.

    3) Follow the procedure for signing-up.

    4) After getting the “Success” message, click on the manager tab.

    5) Look for the heading “Adding Site Meter to your Site.” Click on the link instructions.

    6) Click on the link for Adding Site Meter to a WordPress blog hosted on your server.
    7) Select the HTML code and press Ctrl+C on your keyboard to copy it.

    8 ) Login to your website. You can copy the code in two ways:

  • Go to Presentation->Widgets, drag a Text Box to the sidebar, and copy over your code into it. Click on Update. This will reflect the SiteMeter icon on your sidebar and will track your statistics immediately.

    • or

  • Go to Presentation->Theme Editor. Choose to edit your sidebar.php file. (Make sure you have a back-up of it somewhere). Find a suitable place to paste over the SiteMeter code and paste it there. Check your website for the icon. If it’s there, then you’re done.

    • SiteMeter is pretty addicting, once you have installed it. I myself look at my blogs’ sitemeter many times in a day(and night), just to check my statistics summary. I’ve been planning on cutting my SiteMeter OC behavior, but I don’t think I can cut it out just like that. Not in the near future. Probably 5 years from now or when I decide to stop blogging altogether.

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