Tags: accessiblity, blogging, design, stats, web 2.0, wordpress, www.
Categores: Blogging Advice, Opinion.
Question of the Month: How do you measure your site’s success? (i.e. doing what you want it to do)
Having owned a site from the world of Geocities back in 1996, and many frequent hiatuses, the world of Web 2.0 is, for the most part, still quite alien to me. I don’t fully understand the sleuth of social bookmarking sites or the function of Google pageranks (other than the fact that it drives traffic). I have slowly transformed my site to work according to certain Web 2.0 standards such as code validation, ensuring that they are 508 compliant - a standard to assure those with disabilities, particularly the blind, can access my site like everybody else.
Regardless of Web 2.0 standards, I measure Nanyate’s success by delving deep into my Statcounter. While most people only look at their unique visitor count, pageviews, and referrals, I find that miscellaneous statistical information can provide key information for blogger-designers like me (and, I presume, most of you too!). For example:
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Visitor Length - Reflection of your content and design quality
For me, this is by far the most important number because how long your visitors stay on your site reflects on the quality of your blog content and to a lesser extent, how aesthetically and functionally pleasing your site is. By aesthetics, I don’t mean designing the site with the caliber of NDesign Studio, but just one that I can view without getting a migraine from flashy ads and horrendously tiny text.
My visitor length averages at approximately 4 minutes. Since my blog is a niche blog, mainly appreciated by women and personal blogger-designers, having 50% of my visitors stay on my blog for more than 30 seconds is considered pretty good. I don’t quite understand the 20% of visitors that stay on my site for an hour. But I’m grateful. You must really love my site - more than I do!
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Returning Visits and Feed Subscribers - Barometer of content quality
Having returning visitors is a sign that your blog is producing original content, and generating interests among others. Unlike visitor length, the percentage is not as important as the actual count. Out of 200 visitors, I have around 50 returning visits and an average of 30 feed subscribers (including comment feed). It means my blog could do better to target more people and expand its niche. But for an almost 4-month old blog, I think it’s not too bad.
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Browser - Accessible coding for all
There are so many designers out their fighting about whether to design for Firefox or IE. A simple look at your statistics can show who you should cater for. For me, out of 500 people, 350 Firefox, 100 use IE and 50 uses Safari. The answer? If you want returning visits or make it into design galleries, design for all of them.
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System Stats - Accessible design for the masses
Like the browser problem, many people condemn designers for leaving 800×600 resolutions behind. But here is the hard cold facts from my Statcounter: 300 visits from 1280×1024 resolution, 100 visits from 1024×768, 10 from 1152×864 and a measly 5 from 800×600. Do you mean I should jeopardize the ease for 400+ people who have bigger resolutions for the 5 who have 800×600? Of course, I can design sites that have expandable divs, but I don’t think it’s worth the trouble as I’m unwilling to forgo the ‘personal’ part of my personal blog for minor increase in accessibility. (But of course, you may beg to differ.) Besides, with the advent of feeds, they can ignore my inaccessible design for my content, if they wish so.
I’m not sure how you guys analyze your statistics but I hope I have enlightened a few people. And like I said, I’m not Web 2.0 savvy, so…
…do share your views on how you analyze statistics!
FYI, I am using the free version of Statcounter that can only view the latest 500 visitors’ in-depth stats, which can skew my analysis. Also, I blocked my IP, so statistics provided here do not include my own visits to prevent any further distortions.
P.S. A major update, Wordpress 2.5 is planned to be released tomorrow, so be sure to standby for the annoying yellow reminder. I guess not. Regardless, I’m psyched! Can’t wait. The Dashboard looks amazing and is AJAXed out!
Tags: award, blogging, design, tophostingcenter.
Categores: Emotions.
Alert! Ego boost in effect! Please skip this post if you don’t wanna watch my head swell.
My web host, TopHostingCenter just wrote an awesome review for Nanyate?! and presented me with Speedy Tophostingcenter Blog Award! It’s one thing to have a little 200×200 trophy image to display on your site, but another to have an entire blog post overspilling with praise written about your site - by your web hosting company!
The relationship TopHostingCenter tries to establish with its clients is truly one of a kind. It’s a relationship that far exceeds the constraints of a business transaction. It’s almost a blogger-to-blogger, friend-to-friend kind of relationship, where both parties are put in a win-win situation - at all times. By noticing and acknowledging their clients, the company encourages them to put more effort on their sites. And thereby promoting themselves through their clients. It’s a wonderful strategy - but not without sincerity.
Sincerity here is the keyword. For me, I blog for the sake of writing and meeting new people. So, I try really hard to write about things most people can relate to, and try to encourage conversation. Blogging, to me, is not just a one-way expression by the author but a system facilitating the exchange of ideas. I try to find others like me and establish some sort of a relationship with them, in hopes that they will reciprocate and in hopes that they will find someone else they like on my site. But it’s not because I want comments or Technorati rank, it’s because I do actually enjoy exchanging ideas with people I can have a conversation with. I’m sure if I met anyone of my frequent visitors in real life, we would all by sitting at a cafe and chat for hours.
So, I would like to thank my wonderful host for dedicating an entry to me, Teddy for dedicating a paragraph to me, the Stumblers who have stumbled my site, my feed subscribers and most importantly, I’d like to thank my frequent visitors for the continuous conversation. You guys make it all worthwhile.
P.S. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank all the design sites who have continued to write about my old blog design even after I’ve abandoned it. So, thank you Design Meltdown, Smashing Magazine, Dr. Web and Coliss.