20 Analytics Tools For Blogs

Lee Odden Blogging, Online Marketing, Web Analytics

There are a lot of data points that can be meaningful for tracking blog effectiveness. That is, tracking what happens when visitors arrive at and engage with your blog content. It really comes down to the purpose of your blog. Metrics for a blog that’s focused on making a web site more search engine friendly by adding crawlable content and attracting links is quite different than a blog that’s meant to build thought leadership or brand credibility.

Many of the metrics tools used for blogs are also used for basic web site analytics. That makes sense because many blog initiatives do not have the same kind of budget as web site marketing programs do. Therefore, the analytics employed tend to be low(er) or no cost.

Regardless of the purpose, I’ve assembled a list below of the various tools we use, or have tested to report onsite blog metrics. Pick the service or tool you like the most from the list below or something new for your unique purpose and please share in the comments. The list is in no particular order.

103bees – Free web stats (ad supported) up to 100k visits per month, then it’s $9
Enquisite – Free, extremely detailed web stats
Hittail – Provides suggested topics for your blog by keywords used in referral traffic
Crazy Egg – Provides overlay, list and heat map web stats
RobotReplay – Lets you record visitor actions on your site and play them back
Clicky – Web stats plus feed and Feedburner stats
Google Analytics – Web stats, not really the best for blogs but it’s free
StatCounter – Free web stats
Co.mments – Track comment threads starting on your blog and follow them elsewhere in a feed
Blog Tracker – Free from IceRocket but limited functionality
Performancing Metrics – Basic is Free, or $3.99 to $16.99 per month for more features
Site Meter – Basic Free and Premium versions $6.95 and up
Mint – Popular web stats with bloggers for $30 per site
MyBlogLog – Basic blog visitor stats and social networking. Free and paid versions.
Feedburner Stats – StandardStats Free, TotalStats $4.99/mo
WordPress Stats – Free basic blog stats plugin for WordPress blogs
Google Analytics and Feedburner Stats – Free plugin for WordPress blogs
eXTReMe Tracking – Free web stats with a paid version for $4.50 per month
Web Stat – Many web stats features for $5/mo
TraceWatch – Free but you need access to your server which should be running PHP/MySQL

What are your favorite analytics tools for blogs?

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http://www.taxidrivermarketing.com Daan Jansonius

I use Joost de Valk’s plugin for Google Analytics (http://www.joostdevalk.nl/wordpress/google-analytics/) mainly because it is easy to implement.

Well, and because I work with him and he made me!

Can’t really comment on any others or the list as I’ve only just started blogging and am not looking to make any money out of it (yet). So whilst I am keeping track of what’s going on, I haven’t really nosedived into a pile of statistics yet.
http://www.toprankmarketing.com Lee Odden

Daan, thank you for mentioning that! We’ve used Joost’s tool for GA and it should have been on the list above.
http://www.joostdevalk.nl/ Joost de Valk

Feel free to add it Lee, I wouldn’t mind And have a look at my blog metrics plugin too
http://crueltobekind.org Nicole Simon

Why don’t you consider Google Analytics to be a good tool on blogs?

I have to wonder if you really had a look into what it can do for you, especially with featurs like automated mailing of reports, export of all kind of data, shared access, dedicated visitor trecking down to geo region, clicktracking etc …

yes, it is a bit more work to set it up due to its complxity, but so far the only reason I use an additional tool (tdstats, free) is because I want to track real times sometimes. But other than that, it is GA only for me, everything else falls flat.
http://www.melcarson.com MelC

Do remember Microsoft Gatineau is in beta and we’re accepting registrations for an invitation:

http://advertising.microsoft.com/Gatineau

It is free for adCenter customers, though new customers will have to pay $5 for now…….but not for long
http://www.toprankmarketing.com Lee Odden

Nicole, I don’t think Google Analytics is difficult to set up at all. The format of information and types of information are very focused towards measuring outcomes consistent with conversions, sales, etc. Blogs are a different animal with “micro conversions” like RSS subscriptions, comments and trackbacks to be counted. That said, GA is an excellent tool – certainly for the price.
http://www.toprankmarketing.com Lee Odden

Thanks for that reminder Mel. Havent’ used Gatineau yet but will have one of our team sign up so we can test. So you’re saying Gatineau will be free soon?
http://www.melcarson.com MelC

It is if you have an adCenter account already:

Explaination here
http://crueltobekind.org Nicole Simon

I assume Google will at some point allow me to see the feedburner statistics in GA, in regard to comments and trackbacks I agree – then again I am on a tool what does not provice an easy count of that anyhow.

And if you go into that, I would say you cant stop with just counting them quantitavly (sp?), you need to go into quality as well.

But most of what I would call real interaction with a blog does not happen on the site anyway, that would be read in a feedreader, external linkcount from different sources (and not trackback), links in the bookmarking service fitting to your system etc etc.
http://www.mmmeeja.com/blog Andy M

Nice list.

Does anybody still use AXS by Fluid Dynamics? – http://www.xav.com/scripts/axs/

It needs Perl and hasn’t been updated since 2004, but I’ve had good results from it on hosts that don’t give me access to the raw logs.
http://digitalbiographer.com David Petherick

Although I use Google Analytics and Statcounter, for most content, the most useful data that I can ACT on improve design, architecture or content, or to find out where you are losing people’s attention, comes by using Clicky, which you list. I also find Crazy Egg really useful for testing page layouts, especially landing pages and response forms.

What I found out just yesterday is that Clicky is due to have some major enhancements added from the 19th of January.

One will be able to drill down to compare, for example, time spent by those visiting from the UK as against to the US (one can select country, language, browser city, link, search engine or other parameters) , and see that you’re catering fine for US customers, but UK visitors lose interest too fast. The ‘actions per visit’ is an important measure for sites using Ajax / tab interfaces, and for most blog-based sites.

There’s a preview at

Best of all, Clicky has a free 21-day trial for its premium service, and has a free service for up to 3 web sites and 1,000 daily page views per day per site. The service also has a developer API for the serious geeks to get their teeth into, and a white label version so that, for example, web developers can sell the service to their customers under their own branding.

Disclosure: I really like Clicky. Now where’s my affiliate link…
Mano70

Feedburner Stats – StandardStats Free, TotalStats $4.99/mo

What?
http://blogs.feedburner.com/feedburner/archives/2007/07/freeburner_for_everyone.php
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http://andybeard.eu Andy Beard

Note: Pmetrics is a branded version of Clicky

I would add Excel to the list
http://www.titlesuccess.com Shane Kane – TitleSuccess.com

There’s some really great tools on this list. I was unaware of both Crazy Egg and Robot Replay.
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http://www.candlesbyparis.com paris mano

Thanks Lee for the very informative article.
I am just starting to blog and am not familiar with a lot of the tools. I didn’t realize that these tools were available. Thanks again. I have bookmarked this article for future reference.

Paris Mano
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http://www.ecommind.com Archna Sajwan

Thanks Odden,

It’s truly very helpful list.
http://www.meds4all.co.uk/ meds4all

I am using G-Analytics and statcounter for my blog. but not satisfy with their reporting. Thanks for showing other analytics…i will try to use other and let see what is the diff and reporting.
http://myimtoolkit.com Daniel Mcgonagle

Thanks for the heads up! Really great post. That’s a must-read I must
say.
http://www.caribwebdev.com Carib Web Dev

great post mate!

I currently use the premium version of Clicky and Google Analytics
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http://www.marcidesign.com MarciDesign

Lee,

You are always providing such terrific information – thanks once again, much appreciated!
http://blog.bizzflip.com Will

A well complied list and I will definitely look into the Ice Rocket tool, I already use a combo of typepad/mybloglog/google analytics, etc.
http://voice-a-thought.blogspot.com Dee

A well put together blog. I’ve learned a great deal about blogging from this site.

Thanks
http://www.indiandevils.com Deep

great information…
i used StatCounter and i found it interesting, now i am also going to test any one of the tools you mentioned here…
http://www.greengoldrush.org Dannah

Thanks! I especially like Crazy Egg and Hittail!
http://blog.pixelco.us Diego

Great article and fantastic tools!
I’ve allready write about it in my Blog.

I kwon 2 more tools that I think they are very usefull:
Who’s.amoung.us and ComeStats.
They have functionallity similar, both are widgets that shows the numbers of people that are visitng our site.

Thanks!
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http://www.heyyoubaby.com NewSkill21

Even though I knew most of this already, you just got me as a fan. Because I know you know what you are talking about! Excellent job!
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http://momworksathome.blogspot.com Working at Home Mom

Awesome list!! Really can use all of these. Thank you for this post.
http://searchquilt.com Todd

Another free (with paid options) analytics tool I’d strongly suggest is ClickTale.

http://clicktale.com

It essentially records “videos” of people using you site. You can see exactly where they scroll, where their mouse is, and where they click. Even their window size and resizing.

It’s invaluable for testing landing pages especially but could also be useful for comment forms, sidebar layouts (e.g. RSS feed CTAs), etc.

Strong recommendation.

TL

P.S. Haven’t compared it to RobotReplay yet but look forward to trying that one out. Looks very similar.
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http://www.dailycommonsense.com Daily Common Sense

Awesome, thanks for the list! I wasn’t using any blog analytics tool so far…
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http://www.newsdots.com Geoserv

Great read. I have dotted it.
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http://www.marketquarter.com Jonathan

I too would recommend ClickTale for insights into how your sites are actually being used.
http://trendrr.com mark

opensouce tracking tool social media

Trendrr.com

http://trendrr.com
http://querythe.net Josh

Lets call it pre-analytics

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

all the tracking systems in the world are worthless if you are not writing about what people are searching for. I always start my projects at adwords
http://www.herearringaddiction.com erika-nicole

I agree google is not the best. All of my trackers have different numbers. So I’m not sure what my traffic is.
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http://prstoreminnesota.com Laurie Englert

Great list. Very helpful. Thanks!
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http://www.netfuns.net Clarky

Great! I am just looking for a better blog analytics,now I think that google analytics and robotreplay would be the two best of all. I will use google analytics and robotreplay.
http://www.efficaciousearnings.com Melissa Williams

Thanks for the list. I have just implemented the wordpress stats on my website. Although I had a little trouble getting it installed, it is up and running. Thank again for a great list of resources.
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