How do you track your visitors?

[Danlucy]

Hey guys. What tools or programs are I using to track the visitors to your blog daily?
i.e I want to know where they come, which links they clicked on and which is the favorite links that I liked to click and get most clicks..etc?

 

[taxtorpedo]

Use GoogleAnalytics PLUS A Good Ad Tracker

Use Google Analytics, (you will need a Google email account).

If you have a WordPress blog use this free pluginGoogle Analytics
By Yoast, or one similar:
wordpress.org/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/

If you want to easily keep track of clicks on certain links on
your pages, include a good ad tracker.

Quality free ad trackers can be found at:
100freeworkathometools.com/freeadtrackers.php

 

[tayyabwpb]

You can use Analytify Google Analytics Plugin for your WordPress website that will help you to track all website Analytics and display within your WordPress Dashboard Analytics include

1. Real-Time Traffic Analytics
2. Social Media Analytics
3. Authors Performance Tracking
4. Website forms Conversion tracking
5. eCommerce & EDD tracking
6. Affiliate Links tracking
7. Events tracking
8. Custom Dimensions Tracking
9. Link Clicks tracking
10. Search Terms Analytics

 

[EngagementRingsUSA]

Google Analytics is a solid platform. However, keep in mind that it is designed to only communicate the information it wants you to see. And while it is helpful to review data organized in graphs and pie charts, giving you valuable details on your visitor demographics and user behavior, sometimes you still need raw data to get the full picture. By raw data I am referring to your visitor log, which contains the list of IP addresses, URLs that were viewed, referring URLs and so forth.

I firmly believe that no analytics platform or plugin can replace the raw data from your visitor log.

 

[Russellaga]

Russellaga

Im not sure we can access our server logs (our site is built and hosted by a third party - Visualsoft) any tools that can identify ip addresses that can be added via tags manager?

 

[EngagementRingsUSA]

EngagementRingsUSA

All major third party hosting companies log your visitor data, so it is there. I would check your hosting Admin site and look for it, or contact Visualsoft and inquire with them.

 

[hipcat]

GA is tragically flawed and there have been articles written about that on the big SEO sites who tested it. It's got cute little graphs, but I wouldn't put a lot of faith in it, as it misses lots of important data.

Really ANY 3rd party stats are going to be inaccurate because of data needing to be sent off site to be processed that is subject to that external site's conditions (downtime, lag, DB issues, etc).

As @EngagementRingsUSA said your own server raw logs are going to be your most accurate measure of visitors to your site.

 

[Traffic]

By the amount of bandwidth served as that is what is paid for. Can count uniques and conversions for progress but everything else you stare at complicates so sort out priorities. Does your shared hosting try to cancel you with moderate successs? Traffic either you go all out dedicated or stick with the limitations. It boils down to what you have allowed for.

 

[conivalcheese]

Isn't Google Analytics send fake visitors to your site? I'm not sure though about this..

 

[EngagementRingsUSA]

I wouldn't say that GA sends anything to your site, fake or otherwise. It does, however, do an incomplete job of capturing the visitor data necessary to help business owners make sound decisions. That is why you need to regularly review your logs, to get raw data that can be leveraged for subsequent decision making purposes.

 

[conivalcheese]

conivalcheese

Yes, you're right so I might as well double check anything as I don't want fake views. I'll try to do more research about this.