A blog’s success is measured through both its number of active readers or of RSS subscribers and its performance in traffic: number of page views, of unique visitors, popularity, page rank and many others.

There are a few methods to obtain the needed statistics to track and measure such indicators.

1. Access and traffic statistics

Google, the most powerful and popular search engine in the world, provides bloggers with traffic statistics though its free Google Analytics service.

By choosing a free Google Analytics account, you can view stats regarding your blog’s page views, number of unique or returning visitors, keywords used to reach your blog, the most visited pages you have posted, geographical tracking of your visitors and much more.

Google Analytics is currently considered to be a very accurate and relevant tool. Other services you might consider are StatCounter or Woopra with its live tracking and analytics features.

2. Indexing statistics

The number of pages indexed by a search engine and their position in search tops reflect the indexing rank of a site.

Do you want to find what your indexing results are for two of the most important search engines are? Google and Yahoo offer you two critical tools for any website administrator:

1. Google Webmaster Tools (XML Sitemaps)
2. Yahoo! Site Explorer

You can check the number pages from your website indexed by Google by typing the following in the search box:

site:www.domainname.com

You can also check the number of outside links your website’s pages receive by typing the following:

link:www.domainname.com

3. Popularity statistics

Traffic, accessibility, search engine exposure levels as well as content relevancy and its focus on certain niches all contribute to your blog’s popularity.

The popularity is statistically tracked by a range of online services, of which the most relevant are:

1. Alexa
2. Compete
3. Quantcast
4. Technorati (Blog dedicated service)

4. Statistics’ relevance

A thorough analysis of your blog’s stats will help you identify its strong spots and the type of content best suited for its audience. It will also help you determine its weak spots or to improve your content and focus more on covering certain areas of interest.

Yet make sure you never forget that blogs are maintained through relevant, interesting and fresh content, not statistics!

This concludes the “Corporate Blogging Guide”! I hope you all found it useful and share it with those who you think might need the information provided here. A PDF version of the guide is also in the works and will include an additional chapter.

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools (current)

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Those of you interested in website rankings and SEO, you’d better check out your sites’ PageRanks. As we speak, a new update is in progress (one that has been rumored about). Over the past few hours I’ve seen pagerank updates on most of the websites I’m working on, going up, and back dow, and up again. Let’s see how and when it will stabilize.

And also, Alexa.com has just updated not only their design, but most probably their ranking system too.

New Alexa Design and Ranking System

One day ago, Blogsessive was still ranking around 70,000, and now the rank has been updated to 49,130.

Could it be the pressure of Compete and Quantcast breathing down Alexa’s neck? Who know. What’s important is that they seem to be taking steps toward perfecting their ranking system and updating their online image. And that’s good as it was about time to do it.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Anyone who’s blogging with a goal in mind is most probably keeping an eye on the blog’s stats. The competition is strong in this area. We have Google Analytics, Statcounter , Google Trends, Technorati, Alexa, Compete and many more services.

Starting with the premise that – let’s say – the Alexa rank should not count for much in your blogging activity would be a contradictory affirmation. Why? Because:

1. You should not blog with your stats in mind, or you’ll lose the focus on your community;
2. As much as we hate to admit it, advertisers care about these stats.

So, we have to find that perfect way to deliver appealing content to our community, while still trying to improve our stats and attract new advertisers.

If you take a look around at how different advertising services or blog tops calculate the rates and ratings, we’ll see that each and every one takes these stats in consideration. But, what happens when the stats fail to reflect reality?

Alexa Lost the War

There’s no secret that with the latest “improvement” of their ranking system, Alexa took a decisive step towards their decline. Bloggers have talked about this and proof has been provided.

Let’s take Darren Rowse‘s ProBlogger Alexa stats for example. You’ll see a big drop in his blog’s stats. Is that reflected that obviously in his activity? In his popularity? In his subscribers’ count that’s constantly growing? Same is available for John Chow.

From Blogsessive’s perspective, the story goes like this. About 3 months ago, the activity went into a bad period, due to some changes in my personal and professional life. Despite this, rankings continued to improve. In September, after my “come back”, activity has been continuously growing, making September the best month so far in all Blogsessive’s history. By the looks of it, October will be even better. Still, Alexa rankings drop.

I’d love it if someone could explain me how the best week ever fails to get a better rank than a 3 months average, taking in consideration 4 days of ranking below 40.000 and other 3 days with close traffic levels. Yet, how bad the rankings for those other 3 days have to be to come up with a 124.000 ranking? I’ve never been a huge fan of maths in school, but however you put it, this does not add up!

Also, I’ve been trying for 6 months to update that website screenshot. Is it such a complex task people?

Dear fellows at Alexa, it’s time to reconsider your system. It’s time to change, or simply disappear. Anyway, at this time, you’ve lost the stats war!

Compete is Too Slow

Since its launch, Compete has proven to be a good competitor for Alexa. A lot more information and definitely much more trustworthy. Premium accounts get even more relevant information, from traffic to keywords statistics, and most times, these confirm the reality.

So what’s the problem with Compete? The problem is that we’re living pretty darn dynamic times. Things change daily. New competitors launch daily. Information travel at light speed. So, why do I have to wait nearly one third of October and still see August stats? Where’s September’s stats and ranking?

Compete, if you want to survive this war, you need to provide that valuable information a lot faster! Otherwise, Alexa will be happy to have a companion at the end of the list.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive