You have a lot of options when it comes to tracking data on your blog. Although Kevin prefers one specific solution, Google Analytics, we share with you some of the different options that you have. Analytics is popular because of its widespread use, the amount of content written on how to maximize it, and the fact that it is completely free.
Here are three popular tools:
StatCounter (shown in Figure 3-1) uses the log generated by your server and gives you the ability to configure the reports to fit your needs. If you want to use a log file, you need to have a self-hosted blog and to know where your log file is to be stored. StatCounter requires a little more technical knowledge than your average analytics app because you have to deal with your log file instead of cutting and pasting a line of code into your site. The main advantage of StatCounter is that it is in real time, whereas Google Analytics always has a little bit of lag in its reporting.
WordPress plugins (which we cover in the section “Signing Up and Installing Google Analytics on Your WordPress Site,” later in this chapter) bring a simplified version of Google Analytics (see Figure 3-3) to your WordPress Dashboard (much like the WordPress.com Stats plugin). Most bloggers are very interested in the general statistics of their Web site but feel overwhelmed by Google Analytics. Even with some training, they still prefer to have their stats broken down in a much more digestible fashion. This plugin is for them: It allows for a good overview of their analytics information, including goals that bloggers can set up within analytics. Although the plugin doesn't offer everything that Google Analytics brings to the table, it provides more than enough so that users can see the overall health of their Web sites and monitor where their traffic is coming from, what posts are popular, and how people are finding their Web sites. Besides the Dashboard Stats Overview, this plugin gives a breakdown of traffic to each post, which is a nice added bonus because it gives you a breakdown of traffic to each of your posts daily.