Crumbled & goodgied: Google Analytics & Blogger Stats

Even though data is fun for me, checking my Google Analytics is more like picking a scab. And now Blogger has added their take on the nitty gritty of blogging with Blogger Stats. I'm not sure why they are different but they are. Blogger Stats seems to be real time and up to the moment. One usually has to wait a day to get the facts via Analytics. I end up checking my numbers about twice a month. I checked them today. In both places.

Things seem a bit crumbled and goodgied to me. Not familiar with crumbled and goodgied? This was a term invented by my daughter when she was a little girl to mean something interesting but messed up, good but strange, out of control but tame. At least that's what I've always thought it meant. (She's busy but hopefully she'll comment if I'm wrong.)

My numbers are up this week thanks to participating in Marla Taviano's organized book study on the book by David Platt, Radical. Her website is the top referring website this week too. Facebook comes next but usually is the top referring website. My conclusion here is my most faithful blog readers are my Facebookies and they are my family, high school friends, church friends, and former coworkers. I do have some writer friends on Facebook too.

In contrast, Twitter, where I spend a lot of time, hardly anyone clicks over from there although I'm grateful for the four that did this week. I am connected to a lot of people on Twitter, but it's pretty clear I get lost in the clutter there. This surprises me, makes me wince a little about the implications. It's not the writer relationship builder for me apparently, despite conversating, retweeting, etc. I'm also clearly not promoting as well or as smartly as I thought I was. Talk about not feeling picked....ouch.

I imagined having quite a number of blog readers by now...keyword, imagined. Those bloggers that have really good numbers are in constant promotion mode, have played the game it takes to get popular but mostly, they write faithfully and about good stuff, at least the bloggers I read do. I don't really do any of that if I were truthful. I've been blogging since February of 2007 and have only written 143 public posts. That's less than one post per week although I've picked things up in the last few months. Still, I have gaps. That's bad for analytics. That's a flat line no matter how you figure.

There is much to be confused about in Analytics. Bounce rate for one. I look at mine and wonder what it means really, even after looking up the definitions. I guess you want lower bounce rates. I guess. I'm not sure how to care about that. I think I do. But maybe not.

Amusing, almost a joke, is finding out how people find their way to my blog. One person Googled "UMass Amherst glasses." Huh? More amusing is that more than a few people clicked over from comments I made on other blogs. That always makes me wonder what I said that made them want to click on me. It also proves the point that commenting does help blog traffic.

Numbers are tools to use so they do provide me with information to filter topics I might write about or things I include in posts. Some of the information I processed from these reports this morning though, just makes me a little sad and needs some more digesting. The  importance of numbers whilst interesting isn't why I write, or keep a weblog. Oh, I'd love to have more readers, truly I would, but I'd write anyway if I still had none. I love to write. I love to write about the varied stuff around me in each new day I'm blessed. I love to write even if my data is crumbled and goodgied.

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