Google Analytics – who knew about the detailed information about web sites this free web-based tool can provide you.

I started up my blog on February 21st of this year and when I did I must have setup Google Analytics at the same time. Since the place I have my blog is part of Google it must have prompted me to set it up as well. Maybe, I do not remember really but I remember thinking that I really did not want to know any stats on the blog, it was not for anyone else it was a catharsis thing for me. Well anyway as I approach my one hundredth blog I got curious so I went to set up the Analytics only to find out it was already setup and had been tracking my site since its inception. I have never used this application so it took me a while to understand the data that was being presented to me. I found it all very shocking really, first that there is a free application that does this amount of detailed analysis. I found out that 3 people came to my blog after they searched on Google for “Waffle House oatmeal” and since I come up #2 behind Waffle House’s web site on that Google search and they, for some reason, came to take a look for a few minutes. That blog was about how good Waffle house is after my trip to Ohio in mid July when my niece moved to Florida. I also wrote some blogs about living life using “as seen on television” products one of them was an anti snoring device called RipSnore. I do not know how many people searched the internet to see if the device actually worked but I found out that, surprisingly over 40 people came to my blog after that search, it shows up as the 8th return on Google and each visitor spent almost 3 minutes there. That cracks me up.



Some of the other information I was able to glean from the data was that my average visitor spends 3 minutes each trip, or about the time it takes to read an oratory. I also learned that 37.41% of my traffic comes directly to my site, typed in my URL or clicked a shortcut they created, 35.52% come from referring sites, mostly Facebook and the remaining 27.07% come from search engines, mostly Google. I also learned that people from 15 different countries have spent more than 3 minutes on my site, I still can’t get over that one – in the last month 3 people in Japan, 6 in Norway, 9 in South Africa and 12 from Brazil and another 12 from Australia just to mention a few. Another fact I am still trying to decide what it means is nearly 30% go more than one page deep but just as scary I think, is that fact that just over 40% only look at one page per visit. 77% of my visitors use Internet Explorer and one dude uses his Sony Playstation 3. 93.62% were using a Windows operating system, 3.79% were on a Mac and 1.69% were using an I-Phone. The highest volumes per blog were on the ones I wrote about my Mom when she passed away earlier this year. What in the world is going on and how are these people finding this blog? My blog can’t be classified as one particular subject, for those who follow you know, my topics are all over the place and basically amount to whatever I want to talk about and I have even written about topics that were suggested by the readership.



So what does that all mean to me you might ask – well I do not know. It is not going to change the willy-nilly approach I have to writing my blog. I am not a very good writer and I doubt knowing this information will help me become a better writer. I am not going to stop reading them to my Bride for a second opinion and to help me catch gross errors. I guess knowing this information does me no good really, the numbers are not high enough yet to really monetize it with ads, which Google also allows me to do with relative ease. I am somewhat scared now because I do know the numbers, I do not want my blog to be pressure on me to produce and grow it so it will make money, that is not why I started it. In some ways I wish I did not know the numbers because I do not know what to do with information. I find my blog very relaxing to write, I enjoy them so much I am always smiling and most times actually laughing out loud, yes laughing out loud not LOL. To me it was a lark, I had no idea where it would go and even if I would have enough material to make it a week or two but here I am almost 8 months later and still blabbing, about anything I want to by the way.