Some of you do not have a stat analyzer set up on your blog. That’s fine. It’s not all about the numbers…at least…not to everyone. But I don’t think you realize the fun that is to be had with these stat thingies. I guarantee you’ll be surprised to learn that a lot more people stop by than you think.
Today I’m going to compare and contrast Statcounter versus Sitemeter and you’re going to run and getchoo one. Mmmkay? Here we go. I’m gonna try to make it short and sweet. (click on any images to enlarge.)
Both Statcounter and Sitemeter do the following for you:
-email stat reports upon request.
-rank your pages by popularity so you can see what people are spending their time looking at on your site.
-show entry and exit pages so you can see what page people are landing on when they come visit and what page they’re looking at when they leave.
-allow you to magnify individual visitors and give you detailed information regarding where they live, what their ISP address is and more. This is handy if say, you have an ex-assistant who finds your blog and you want to pinpoint the computers she’s using to stalk you. Though I can’t say that’s such a positive thing to do, kind of a waste of brain cells.
-list visitors by location so if you live in Oklahoma you can see how many other people from Oklahoma view your blog. It can get tricky though because if Grandma reads your blog at home from one computer and then at the library from another computer you might be fooled into thinking you have two Grandma’s. No. I mean…you know what I mean.
-and they’re both free! It’s just a matter of creating an account. More on that later…and no I’m not getting paid for this.
What I Like About Sitemeter.
~In addition to everything I just listed, Sitemeter has a cool traffic prediction button where it tells you how many people are expected to show up. Kind of like a weather forecast. Sounds like fun and I don’t know how dependable it is, but still. It’s fun to look at.
Example:
~It shows you who is CURRENTLY on your site and summarizes how many people were on your site in the last hour. Cool.
Example:
~I really like the overall look of the site. Readable. Functional. Simple. And easy. Statcounter has a LOT going on. All the buttons and gadgets and features are slightly overwhelming. Sitemeter is clear and concise and I like that.
~It also tells you what time of the day you have the most visits…apparently yesterday at 9am ya’ll were having a party at my place. Note to self: make sure posts are up no LATER than 9am. See how helpful that was?
Example:
~Sitemeter tracks up to 100 visitors at a time for free.
To see your monthly average of page views and visitors you would simply click on the tab that says “previous 12 months” under the “visits and page views” section and wa la:
Example:
For an awesome and live Sitemeter tutorial go here.
Signing up and linking it to your blog is quick and easy.
Things I Like About Statcounter:
~It can label ISP addresses and track them specifically. That way when you do find that ex assistant and all of her computer locations you can label them and when you go in to view your recent visitors you can click on an option to ONLY show you the labeled visitors. Nice. It’s like a stalk back. Not very healthy and I don’t do it anymore. Or hardly. By the way Sitemeter does not even give you the full ISP address of a visitor unless you upgrade.
~Statcounter has configurable summary stats which allows you to type in specific dates you want tracked. This comes in handy if, say, you want to compare August 2009 with August 2008…or if you’re trying to go back to a specific day when you had a giveaway to see how much more traffic it brought you. By the way previous years records are not available on Sitemeter unless you upgrade.
Example:
In the example about you can also see how easy it is to view your page views readers. To find out what your average page views and readers are per month you would just click on the word “month” in that top column where it says “choose one.” It shows your average at the bottom of that screen.
~You can make the counter invisible using Statcounter. Very nice if you’re trying to be sneaky about tracking people…like I was…before I decided to post all this. Sitemeter only has this option available for paying customers. Boooooo to paying customers.
~Statcounter has a keyword analysis and a keyword activity tab that shows what search words are bringing people to your page. For example, people recently came to my blog after using the following words in Google: “the mirena crash”, “sobieski vodka”, and “how do you know you are pregnant when you are breastfeeding and no period”. To which I’d like to respond by saying…you’re not pregnant. How easy was that?
Example:
~Statcounter also has neat little pie graphs that Show you how long people are staying on your site and how many visitors are returning visitors. Neato.
Example:
~When you are given a list of people visiting your blog and you click on the referring URL, Statcounter opens that page in a separate window so that you can continue dissecting your stats WHILE checking out who is dropping by. Sitemeter takes you away from the stat page completely.
~Statcounter tracks your last 500 visitors for free…anything over that you have to pay for. Again. Booooooo. Although I suppose these people have to make their money somehow. :)
~Signing up for statcounter and linking it to your blog is equally as easy, but minus the cool tutorial.
Both sites, however, have a demo button where you can click around and see a fake companies statistics and you can click around on all of the buttons and learn how to use the site.
Which do you use? Which do you like better? Do you even care?
