Google Stats, Baby Steps: Everyone’s gotta start somewhere

It is important for me to be able to track certain data on the site, as mundane as that may sound, in order to be able to deliver a site with content that people will actually want to read.

As you can see, pre-launch is nothing to write home about. Hopefully within the next few months these numbers will take off.
I had been debating what tool to go with for these sort of stats; for a while I was set on Mint, and who knows, maybe I will go that way in the future. But, seeing as how as of yet this site is not financially independent by any means whatsoever (note the big, fat “1 Visits”), I will stick to the web-based, free stuff.

It is important for me to be able to track certain data on the site, as mundane as that may sound, in order to be able to deliver a site with content that people will actually want to read.

I am going to have to play with this for a while. The interface of Google Analytics is nice and clean and simple, yet surprisingly robust, especially for a free service.

My two favorite features are the Referring Sites feature under the Traffic Source button. My other favorite feature is the Top Content feature under the Content button.

One of the most interesting features, I think, is called “Bounce”, which represents the percentage of people who come to a particular page then exit that same page. As if to sample that page of the website, find it boring, disinteresting or whatever, and leave without visiting other pages. A high “Bounce” rate may mean are finding your page and not finding your content useful, or it could mean that whatever source is driving them is faulty. Hopefully, this site will be relatively “Bounce free”.