Google Analytics - Obsess In Style

How do indie writers get any work done, checking their sales stats all day long? I have it easy. I don't have any sales stats. Still, I manage to not write on most days.

Anyway.

Want some stats that will keep you interested, and are actually somewhat useful? Google Analytics will keep you mesmerized for days. Sign up, plug a tiny bit of code into your page, and you're off. Blogspot has a place to put your GA number in their preferences, I believe. So you don't even have to mess with HTML. Like that's something scary.

So, activate your account, plug in the code, and...nothing. It takes a day for stats to start coming in. But when they do?

Wow. I just added it here for the heck of it. I learned a lot about the behavior of visitors to my site. For instance, I used to get fifty hits, I thought that meant fifty people. Nope. More like six or so, clicking on eight pages each.

See? That's useful to know.

You can follow the trail through the pages they visit, from the landing page to the jump page when then leave your site again. Simply put, there is a wealth of information to be had here. If you have an author's website, you really should be running Google Analytics.

You just need to know what to do with it after that, I guess.