The real fun stuff of Blogging is stats. Stats show you the referring URL, searches audience country, operating systems and posts hits; so for a newbie then these can help shape your blog. Stats are on the dashboard in Blogger. Using stats you can really see how promoting is affecting your blog. My blog is popular in Ireland, USA, England, Canada, Germany, France, Israel, Japan, Russia, and Australia. I use this information to explain cultural references or to even do a post on their country, as I did here.
For further helpe see this YouTbue as a visual guide:
(Taken from google.com/support)
- Sign into Google Webmaster Tools with your Google Account.
- Click Add a site, and type the URL of the site you want to add. Make sure you type the entire URL, such as http://www.example.com/
- Click Continue. The Site verification page opens.
- (Optional) In the Name box, type a name for your site (for example, My Blog).
- Select the verification method you want, and follow the instructions.
In here you must verify your account, so select “Add a meta tag to your site’s home page.” You just copy the HTML code then go to your dashboard on your blog. Go to Design, edit HTML, do a search for and you just paste the code in there and save. Once you go back to your webmaster Google account you can click on verify.
Michelle Moloney King 
Yay! I'm not horrifically vain – I Google myself about once every few months. It helps that I have a fairly unusual name.
So, my brain immediately went to 'how can this be applied to our books and authors?' Search engine optimisation without having to pay for ads is most definitely a plus for a small publisher so thanks for this!
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I Google my name about once a month, I'm delighted to see I'm not alone in this. It helps that I have a fairly unusual name!
So, I immediatly started thinking aobut applying this strategy to my job – increasing web presence without having to pay for ad space is certainly a major plus in marketing!
Thank you for this – I hope you don't mind if I try apply it to work!
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This is true. It also help me concentrate on the biggest and smallest traffic provider to my site. Good info Michelle.
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Hi Jamie,
Thanks, yeah the stats can be a tad addictive!
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Good info Michelle! LOVE GOOGLE! My site is wordpress so I will be going that route. Stats can be totally addicting though…
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Hi Derek,
Yeap, it sure does. THis site tell you how to do it: http://cashcoach.net/how-to-setupgoogle-webmaster-tool-wordpress/
Google Webmaster tools will give you the breakdown of countries.
Best
Michelle
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That's brilliant, Michelle. Do the Google Webmaster Tools work for WordPress as well? And I don't suppose you'd know if WordPress does the geographical stats as well? I've found my stats but I don't see a breakdown by country. Nice job, anyway!
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Hi Al,
No harm in getting carried away with stats, I have used them to find out what people read and can improve my blog in accordance.
Best
Michelle
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Thank you for this information! I actually get quite obsessed with stats!
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Tried but got no stats – I think you should do a tour visiting your IT in need of help friends – I can pay you in choc biscuits!
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