Okay, you’ve got the blog up and running. You’re posting regularly. Maybe you’ve even received a comment or two. But how can you tell if you are doing well? There are many tools available to help you measure your traffic. You can see the number of people that visited, how they found your site, what they looked at, and how long they stayed. And that’s really just the beginning. Here are a few of the best tools available to help you start keeping track.
Technorati
One way to gauge the popularity of your blog is to see how many others are linking to it. This website provides an easy way to see that under the heading “Recent Influential Reactions.” You can also see how big or small the blogs are that link to you. Additionally, Technorati lists your “Authority” and “Rank” based on their measurements of your blog. For Authority, you’re hoping for a higher number, and for Rank, you want to be closer to number 1 in your category. Keeping track of how these numbers fluctuate over time can help you see if your blog audience is growing or shrinking.
Google Analytics
To get started, all you need to do is copy/paste tracking code provided by Google into the HTML of your blog’s template. Then you’ll have access to a wealth of data. You can track visits, pageviews, time on the site, and your bounce rate. You can find out where your traffic is coming from and see how popular specific pages are. You can get into great details with this tool, but you can also keep it simple if you don’t need complex data.
QuantCast
This website measures traffic, demographics, business, lifestyle, interests, and more. Not only will you be able to see how your traffic is growing, but you’ll also be able to see if your target audience is visiting. Are you more popular with moms who earn over 60k, or are most of your readers single males without a college degree?
Alexa
Click on “Site Info” at the top of the page, and then search for your site. This tool tracks your traffic rank, reach, pageview, bounce rate and more over time. You can also get a snapshot of your audience and compare your site to your competitors’ sites to see how it fares. The best way to see how your blog is doing is to measure trends. Don’t panic if you see a downturn for a few days or even weeks. Keep a spreadsheet where you can track how things are going over the course of several months. This is the best way to spot patterns, see what content does best for you, and work toward improving your blog. When you try a new strategy, such as a social media campaign, you can better analyze how much of an impact it made on your traffic. 
