Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
8
TRACKING STATISTICS AND
BRINGING IN VISITORS
Getting More People to Visit
Your Blog
Bloggers are obsessed with visits to their WordPress blogs. One of the
very best features of WordPress.com blogs is the free, detailed, up-to-
date statistics that we take you through in this chapter. (The same
statistics are available to WordPress.org blogs as well; just install the
WordPress Stats plug-in.)
Apparently, though, the official WordPress stats aren't nearly enough.
Statistics are perhaps the most popular single focus for additional plug-
ins as well. See Chapter 13, “The WordPress Toolkit: Plug-Ins,” for
details of finding and installing the plug-ins that fit your needs for your
WordPress.org blog.
Even that, though, doesn't meet everyone's needs. Google Analytics, as
comprehensive a web analytical tool as most of us could imagine, can be
hooked up to a WordPress.org blog as well. It takes hours to learn to use
it correctly, but the results are said to be amazing. (Neither of us is that
nerdy, at least with regard to blog stats.)
So rest assured that even if you're a WordPress.com user now, limited to
the really rather good statistics built in to your blog's Administration
area, you have a healthy growth path ahead in WordPress.org if you
want to take advantage of it.
Even if you use additional plug-ins or Google Analytics, though, it's
worth thoroughly understanding the official stats. That way, you can get
the most out of them, and have a firm basis for understanding additional
statistics offered elsewhere.
