What The Blog Statistics You Track Say About You…

23 | Posted In Blogging by David

It has been said before in other circles:

You can’t control what you don’t measure.

This statement is true. It means that if you don’t track something and keep tabs on it, you are not in control of it.

Many people tend to think a statement like this is primarily relevant to executives and people who run a company. However, that is limited thinking. The truth is that this statement is relevant to everybody. To you.

And I’ll take it a step further…

What you measure predicts your future. If you track the wrong things, things go out of whack.

Imagine if, while running a business, you actually kept track of how many paperclips you used. Wouldn’t make very much sense, would it? Why is that? It is because paperclips are not a measure of what’s important for the business. Paperclips have no bearing on income.

Many bloggers actually view their number of RSS subscribers as an important number. They track it closely and get freaked out over Feedburner’s various hiccups. Why? Your RSS subscriber count is not an important number. Because, if you intend to make money with your blogging, you should realize that RSS subscribers have a very low level of engagement with your site and it is very low priority. If you track RSS subscribers and, therefore, put your efforts into raising that number, you could end up with a nice subscriber base and still be broke.

The proper approach is to figure out what is most important to you – your #1 product. Then, you work out the things to track which are directly relevant to that product.

If you want to generate revenue from your blog, you should be tracking things like:

  • Income (surprise!)
  • Number of email list subscribers (because an email list is directly monetizable while RSS is not)
  • # of points of contact with others in your niche, etc.
  • Real promotional actions (things that directly relate to income)

Things that don’t have a direct impact on income would be:

  • RSS subscribers
  • Tweets
  • Blog comments
  • Wall posts on Facebook
  • Number of Twitter followers or Facebook friends.

Realize that some of these things can be seen as indicators of how much reach you’re building, but in and of themselves, they have little to no bearing on your #1 goal – revenue.

Most bloggers don’t track anything at all and that’s a huge mistake (unless they’re just hobbyist bloggers). If they do track anything, they might loosely monitor things like number of Twitter followers, number of RSS subscribers, how often they post to their blog, etc. And – SURPRISE! – you’re not making much money if that’s the case.

… Because you’re measuring the wrong things.

Oh, and once you identify the right things to keep track of, actually TRACK it. Like, really track it and graph it so you can spot the trends.

In my business, Lisa (my VA) tracks my income from various sources as well as changes in email list size. Because those things matter. We track it in a spreadsheet. I don’t waste my time tracking my followers on Twitter or how many “fans” I have on Facebook. They’re not important in the grand plan. If I monitor the right things and grow those, things like Twitter and Facebook will raise as an automatic result.

What I’m talking about here is one of many habits that separate the professional blogger from the hobby blogger.

I recommend that you take a little time and identify the most important things for you to keep track of, then begin tracking it. On a weekly basis, plug the numbers into a spreadsheet (Google Docs is nice), and get some trend graphs in place. Then, you can begin gauging your actions based on getting those trends to increase in your favor.

What you measure predicts your future. Start measuring the things that really matter.

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  • http://BlogWithSuccess.com Shannon_Herod

    Hey David

    Another great post my friend. You are spot on as well. It was not until I started treating my business as a business that it exploded.

    I quickly learned that spotting trends and tracking my e-mail list size had a huge impact on my income.

    Tracking has been a huge part of that and knowing what converts with my list of subscribers and what doesn’t has also been a main factor.

    Plus, getting out of the make money niche in general has helped my business a lot. Going after my passions has really made my business explod and my stats are looking like a hockey stick nowadays. (Shooting almost straight up)

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    That’a awesome, dude.

    Yeah, I’ve been brainstorming some things myself outside of this niche. I mean, I’m doing the tech blog, too, but I can’t say it is a real passion at this point.

  • http://www.WishListMemberTutorials.com/ David Walsh

    Hey David,

    Totally agree with what you’ve said.

    In the age of Social Media and stuff, people have missed the point when it comes to business. They think a bazillion Twitter followers is going to make them a millionaire… It’s not. It’s Business Basics 101.

    Great post and I hope others take your lead and follow sound business sense. As you said, if your business is growing, so is your list of followers. Focus and Track that which is important and other others will increase. Sound advice once again… ;)

    David
    –

  • http://www.thenewamericanlandscape.com/ Gieo

    David,

    Your webinar last night on easy to set up membership sites was excellent and a real service to anyone (myself) who plans to take advantage of this income stream.

  • http://ferodynamics.com Ferodynamics

    Tracking is a growing business.

    Look at IBM “Building a Smarter Planet” people trust numbers.

  • http://aremorch.com Are Morch

    Touche…

    I experienced the same. When I started to focus on what my real passion and love was it made all the difference.

    I try not to get to tangled up in my stats. I follow the tips that David provides here.

    Though I have seen some various advice when it comes to tracking. Have seen some say that the first year of establishing your online presence not to over focus on stats.

    What is your take on this David? The process you refer to here do you recommend implementing it from the start, or implementing the various measuring strategies as you reach some of your milestone goals?

    Cheers.. Are

  • http://www.onelifethatshines.com Jackie Lee

    Hi David,
    I’m glad to say I at least pay attention to the right things. I’m not, however, tracking them in a meaningful way. I’m going to have to start a spreadsheet. You think weekly is a good number to keep track and add things to the spreadsheet?

  • Philippe Moisan

    Hi David,

    I just registered this week to your blog.

    Man, you ROCK !!!

    I’ve heard of other bloggers, they talk the talk, YOU WALK THE WALK !!!

    Sorry for using so many capital letters, it’s just, that post here took my socks off…

    Can I use it at APSense ? I created a group for guest blogging there last week, and I found your blog while researching on the subject, so I put your link’s blog in the resources there.

    I want to write an article, put an excerpt of your post here, then put a link to the post so people come here to read the whole thing. The title of the article will have your name in it. I never take credit for stuff done by other people.

    If you prefer I delete the arcticle, let me know, you will have my email.

    Philippe

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    I’d say start right away. It isn’t an involved thing, and I’m not saying you have to focus on them. I think when some people give that advice, they mean not to be checking Analytics every day as you could get discouraged.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Bloggers do it all the time. Go, sure, go ahead. :-)

    Oh, and thanks for the kudos.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Thanks. :-)

  • http://www.imconferencecalendar.com Kerwin

    Hi David,

    Thanks for this post. An ex-VP of mine always said: “What gets measured gets managed.’ So your topic is right on.

    I’ve got a comment about this statement:

    Things that don’t have a direct impact on income would be:
    – Number of Twitter followers or Facebook friends.

    Not sure I agree with the Facebook friends reference as you can use your facebook page to market to your people who Liked your page and give them special offers. The same for twitter; you have at this writing 6 RT, don’t you think that contributes to your income in some way?

    Also, speaking of measuring things, how do you keep track of the income and expenses of your business? I mean what kind of software do you recommend/use?

    So what else do you track other than income from various sources and the size of your e-mail list? it would be helpful to know what do you do when you notice your e-mail list shrinking over time, or your open rate decreases?

    Thanks.

  • http://www.imconferencecalendar.com Kerwin

    Agreed that totally blogging about your passion makes a lot of difference. Monetizing it is a little harder though.

  • http://gilbertocintron.com Gilberto Cintron

    I guess I’d have to be the lone dissenter. While I agree with many things you point out here, I have to totally disagree with some others. The number one thing, as you point out, is revenue. But how do you generate revenue if not by the number of readers to your blog.

    I also don’t care to much about RSS since, as you accurately point out, these types have no engagement with your blog once they have obtained your feed. Plop it into a reader, get automatic updates without ever again having to visit your site/blog.

    However when it comes to the number of Fans I have on my page, here is where I disagree. Unfortunately many still do not see the full potential of Facebook. Many still see it as a nice place for college kids to hang out and share pictures. Those are the ones that are leaving so much money on the table.

    I would suggest you and your readers take a look at a recent post made on the Forbes blog entitled “The Future Of Buying Through Facebook”. In this blog the author points out that Facebook is poised to become a world marketplace. And while during the past decade every blogger and internet marketer was preoccupied with Google’s PR and SEO, this next decade will be all about Facebook. These days just about every major “Brand” has a Facebook page. There is one reason and one reason only, REVENUE. If one drives traffic to ones Fan page from ones blog and Vice versa I would venture to say that the #1 goal of generating revenue would be increased significantly.

    This is the era of social interaction, social networks, and that is Facebook’s forte. Tracking is a very good tool for all businesses, and if one is blogging for income then their blog is their business hence they should be tracking those things you’ve mentioned. I go further and say that one should forge interaction between their blog and their Facebook Page (if they do not have a Facebook Page for their blog, they should get one) and track the traffic flow between the two. More importantly track the increase and/or decrease of income from that interaction.

    People are doing some amazing things these days with Facebook pages. I agree that accumulating “friends” for the sake of accumulating friends is futile, but while content is King, social interaction or engagement, is Queen. Marry these two and one would have a Kingdom.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    I agree with you, dude. The emphasis of this post was on tracking things with a direct link to the goal you’re trying to get. And, while I didn’t mention it…. the 80/20 rule.

    An email list will blow away Facebook when it comes to direct monetization.

    Fans on FB are important, though, but needs to be kept in perspective. Friends on FB, who cares. Fans, yes. In fact, it is one of my goals to build up my public profile more on Facebook this year.

    But, I still keep it in perspective. :-)

    Social continues to get socked by email marketing, and the really successful social marketing campaigns I’ve seen out there don’t close a sale (usually) until they backed it up with?…. email marketing.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Well, friends and “fans” are very different on Facebook. ;-)

    And, yes, social footprint is important, but the real-world effect of those things in terms of business is SO overblown by people who think social is the biggest thing – ever. It helps to have Twitter followers, and it is nice to get retweeted… but the traffic that comes from it pales in comparison to the effect of a single email to my list. Social is a way to expand the brand, but, as was the point of this post, not as important as some of the things most bloggers never keep track of.

    I use Quickbooks.

    I also track traffic (of course). :-) And, I’ve never had my list shrink, so I dunno. But, if that were the case, I’d have to seriously question what I’m sending to my list to make them unsub. What I track, tho, isn’t necessarily size, but growth rate.

  • Anonymous

    Agree totally with the RSS subscribers thing – in fact I thought of just scrubbing it from my blog and either people come to the blog, or they subscribe to the list (which is what I want them to do).

    What are your thoughts on that?

    Paul

    PS it wouldn’t be a big deal for me, the blog I’m working on is still early days, only a few months old.

  • http://DonnyGamble.com Donny Gamble

    I think your stats give you a good baseline of what you are doing right and what you need to improve on in terms of response rates.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    I don’t see any reason to get rid of it altogether. Some people may want to use RSS (in most niches, it is a minority, but still….). Maybe keep the RSS icon somewhere, but not make a big deal out of it. Spend your real efforts on the list.

  • Psabaj

    I loved the post but I love the feedback comments.By the way my heart goes out to you on hte stay at home dad thing. I worked as a firefighter and my days off I was in charge. I do have to say that I did get good at the laundry. But enjoy it while it lasts as it is gone too soon. I now drive the son thirty miles away to a school for gifted kids and then go to my Just
    Over
    Broke.
    I love the education you provide so that I might leave the rat race. By the way any plans to go to Blog World this year? If you do hope to see you there along with any other posters.

  • Anonymous

    Mate this post is right on point!
    I think you summarised the whole thing with this sub heading:
    “The proper approach is to figure out what is most important to you – your #1 product. Then, you work out the things to track which are directly relevant to that product.”
    I have this problem of trying to take on too much at once and also getting easily distracted by shiny objects (Im the Magpie blogger -oooh new blog idea? …SEE!) and as a result of this ‘affliction’ I have the following written on my wall at home in the office:
    ‘is what you are doing right now directly leading to the building of your business and/or your profits’
    Its a very good thing to have because more often than not, when Iread it – what I am doing is NOT one of those things, so I promptly stop.

    I never thought to apply this within the analytics side of it, I always looked at all analytics as the same – but you are so right, only anlyse and control what matters to your bottom line.

    Oh, and I like that you mention ‘connections to others in your niche’ as an asset – because that is indeed something I am building as I go. May not be able to ‘sell it’ but definitely can leverage it for a lot more :)

    Thanks David

  • Anonymous

    coment

  • http://hpshappyhomebusiness.blogspot.com Hpvanduuren

    To be honest I just recently started to get
    a little more attention for TRACKING.

    (- Star Tracking – accros the Universe…,
    Oops sorry for that)

    I did recently create a little overview with the actual ‘Oil Wells’ that I have put in my ‘Writing Oil Field’. (like for example Notebook Computers and Coffee Makers) So that I have a better insight into how much money those specific products can make me. Only this might be the other way arround since it’s my experience that what I would like to sell isn’t alway’s automatically something that people visiting my Blogs really want to buy.

    For example on my Travel Blog I wanted to (pre) sell my (on that blog relatively high priced) ‘Speakers Cruise for Free’ Product, and instead of buying this – behind my back – they buy loads of – Travel Power Plug Adapters – that I didn’t even know I was selling!!!

    So because of that I begun to develope a little more attention for tracking and recently begun with placing a – Most Popular Posts Widget – this might also give me a better insight how I can better position my Blogs because there is still a lot of room for improvement. :)

    All the Best,
    To your – Blogging – Inspiration,
    HP