How to Track your Blog’s Traffic, Visitors

Getting to know how many people visited your website or blog is interesting. Blogging becomes all the more fun when you can track your visitors; how many pageviews is your blog getting; how many people are reading your blog, from where are they coming (location, referring websites and search engines) and what are they looking for. Knowing the keywords that your visitors searched for on Google before landing on your blog or website also helps you create more content on that topic and improve your blog’s popularity. These visitor statistics come handy in improving your blog. And it’s free.

The Internet has hundreds of websites that offer free website/blog visitor counter. But not all of them offer all the information that can help. What are the best sites to get free Web traffic statistics about your blog or website?

Before we get to know what are the options available for free website traffic statistics, we should know that all websites offering tracking services almost always require you to register with them and add a Javascript code to your blog. Once done, you can check your visitor stats in the tracking service providers dashboard.
How to add Javascript code in your Blogger blog?

Paste code in Widget box:
Sign in to your Blogger dashboard.
Click on the “Layout” link next to your blog name.
Click on the “Add a Page element”.
Select “HTML/Javascript” and paste the code.
Save the changes.

Paste code in template code:
Sign in to your Blogger dashboard.
Click on the “Layout” link next to your blog name.
Now Click on “Edit HTML” tab.
Check the “Expand all Widgets” option.
Look for and paste the code just above it.
Save the template.
Adding tracking code in other blogs/websites

To add the tracking code in any other website or blog, paste the code just above in the template or webpage. If you are using a WordPress blog, go to the directory that contains the template. Look for footer.php and paste the code just above tag. Done.

Here’s a list of free services that provide website visitor statistics. Pick the one that suits you the best.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides one of the best detailed statistics about the visitors to a website or blog, but it’s only available for top-level domain such as www.speckygeek.com. If you are using your own domain with Blogger or have your own hosted blog, it’s the best service that you can get for free.
Sitemeter

Sitemeter is also among the most popular tracking service. The service is as simple; create an account, copy the code and add it in your blog.
Histats

If you are looking for animated counters, Histats is the place to go. You can choose between hidden and visible counters, and also between rich Flash animated counters and plain text ones.
Statcounter

Statcounter is similar to others. It’s fast and updated in real time. Invisible tracking is available and no ads on your site. It provides hidden counter which gives pretty comprehensive stats–pageviews, unique visitors, search engine keyword and many more.
Whos.amung.us

Quick and dirty way of tracking visitors to your website. No need for registration. Just copy a code and add it to your website. Whos.amung.us counter will be visible to every one, and clicking on it will provide basic details about the number of visitors, pages being viewed, number of visitors during the day or a month or a year.