About
I am a tracking fiend. I like to read raw web logs. I like to know where my traffic came from. What they were looking for when they clicked through to my site. Whether they found it. What I need to do to ensure that my writing stays focused yet gives my visitors what they are looking for. I am also lazy. I have a food blog on Blogger since early 2003. I’m loathe to move it to its own domain even though I did a rather late CSS Reboot in an attempt to prove that it is possible to have reasonable looking and unique layouts on Blogger. The number of Indian food blogs has exploded exponentially over the last year. For every ten poorly written Indian food blogs, there are at least a couple of new gems on the horizon. It’s been a virtual treat and I feel like I grow fat just looking at my monitor! I haven’t promoted my food blog by participating in events or memes or putting up a formidable blogroll. Yet the traffic to my blog increased. I realized when Google AdSense slowly started showing an increasing number of page impressions.
Since I am on Blogger, I don’t have access to my logs. Oh how that has killed me over the years! I like to read raw web logs, remember?! But I had a mental block against SiteMeter. I hate the SiteMeter image. So when Nick Wilson’s Performancing came out with their free tracking software, I figured, why not? And soon, I knew where my traffic came from, what they were looking for and what I can do with all this information.
The first step was to thank my referrers! Google, Yahoo and MSN are always top of the list. But they don’t care about me or how grateful I am. I prepared a list of the top 25 referrers, most of them Indian food blogs, and thanked them with a quick review.
Vaishali, Queen of Word Play and Happy Burps, asked me:
Manisha,
How do you do that? Finding out where the traffic is coming from? And why did you want to find out? I mean, if traffic increased at my blog, I’d just sit back with a smug face thinking that ‘I have arrived’. I’d just feel more *important*, and I’d continue thinking like that. I guess, I am just too selfish to give others the credit for it. Well…I am not Manisha, am I?
How I do that. Why I want to know. What I can do or will do with that information. That’s what this blog is about. Yes, I finally got to the point, didn’t I?
A blog on optimization of blogs has long been on my mind. It has finally been catalyzed by Vaishali’s questions. So look for nuggets on how to take your blog to the next level on Visible Blog
Manisha