Wednesday Tech Tip: Check out Google Analytics

If you haven't yet looked at Google Analytics I would recommend at least checking it out. The information you get from it will help you see what is your most popular blog content, where your blog readers come from, what search terms they used to find your blog, and more.

Hosted blogging platforms generally come with a statistics feature built in, but they're sometimes a bit basic. If you're interested in knowing more, it's usually a simple process to install Google Analytics.

In the book, I explain step-by-step how to sign up for Google Analytics and install it on to your Blogger, Typepad, WordPress or Tumblr blog.

But remember, it's easy to get bogged down with stats - decide how often you will check them (weekly should be plenty) and stick to it. Otherwise you'll be logging in every five minutes to see what your readers are up to, and it can get addictive! Don't let the stats distract from your main job of posting great stuff and building your blog community.

To give you an idea of the scope of Google Analytics, here's a great post from Gregory Clotti about Top 5 Google Analytics Reports for Bloggers.