Google Analytics

A month ago, I signed up for Google Analytics to measure who was visiting this blog, and how they were getting here. I had been using SiteMeter, but I wasn't happy with the limited information the free version was giving me.

Now that I have a month of statistics, I thought I would share some of them:

In the past 30 days I had 992 visits - approximately 33 visits a day on average.

Top 10 countries:
US (713)
Canada (62)
United Kingdom (34)
Belgium (26)
Netherlands (18)
Australia (14)
Brazil (10)
Philippines (10)
Mexico (7)
Germany (7)

Top 5 searches that led to the site
"Missouri Genealogy" Genealogywise (20)
Deuteronomy 16 (9)
St. Louis Post Dispatch Obituaries (7)
Dutch Terms of Endearment (6)
German Terms of Endearment (5)

Top 10 pages viewed
1. Main page (446)
2. label/Wordless Wednesday (75)
3. st-louis-post-dispatch-obituaries.html (54)
4. genealogy-wise-and-its-most-active-and_7337.html (52)
5. thoughts-on-genealogywise.html (42)
6. smile-for-camera-they-worked-hard-for.html (37)
7. label/Amanuensis Monday (33)
8. dont-rely-completely-on-google-alerts.html (31)
9. missouri-digital-heritage.html (30)
10. my-surnames.html (27)

I'm not too surprised by most of this information. I expect the majority of my regular readers to be visiting the main page to read the latest entries. The other pages will be accessed by those who find my site via search engines, are referred from other sites, or those who decide to browse through the archives.

This is proof (to me) that when one does participate in the Wordless Wednesday meme, one should add a link at WordlessWednesday.com. It does bring in new visitors.

I'd be happy with an average of 30 readers a day, but I know it's higher. Google Analytics only measures those who visit the website. There are several other ways to read my posts. The most common is through an RSS feedreader. There are currently 79 subscribers via Google Reader, and 3 through Bloglines. (I've subtracted my own subscriptions from these totals) Most of these readers likely only visit the site when they leave a comment. There are other feedreaders, but these are the only two for which I have access to the statistics.

I also send a copy of my feed to my Facebook Notes application, and my profile page on Genealogy Wise. There is no way for me to know how many people read my posts there, though I have received several comments on my posts on Facebook, so I know I have some friends reading it there. I may have over 100 regular readers. I find this amazing, and gratifying. I want to thank all of you, and hopefully my posts continue to be of interest.