Depressing analytics

You're freaking out over nothing. Seriously. Deep breaths.

It's a good idea to use several forms of analytics to determine your true readership. For instance, Google Analytics often underestimates, and since EVERYTHING Google does is in beta, they may adjust their code from time to time and thus your hits may shift for no reason that has to do with your site. Any other free hit counter may make similar adjustments. (Also remember that Google Analytics is primarily there to pimp out Google AdWords and other Google-related ad services.) If you have a Project Wonderful ad on your page, I suggest keeping an eye on it for a more optimistic estimate of your hits, and then sort of mentally average the two.

My Google Analytics count has been getting lower as of late, even though I know the word is getting out there. When you're starting out, you've really got to fight for numbers. It'll get easier with time and work. Always remember that these hit counters are all estimates. I usually just keep an eye on them to see if an ad or a new link or review is getting me some return, and a vague idea of how MUCH return. I had to pry myself away from obsessing over them at a certain point, and found some new web shinies to play with in the interim.

Personally, I've always found that the general trend is upward, but that my site hits a high one month and then the next month (or two) is lower by a little and then it starts going up again.

It's crazy that way. Also, once you've been at this for more than a year, you find that some months are just down in general -- like summer for example. My stats went down the moment most colleges let out for the year and then slowly trended upwards again, passing the previous high by a long shot. That's roughly what they did last year too.

I do the averaging among Google, PW and Blogads and arrive at a mean. I try not to obsess.

Okay, I'll stop freaking and obsessing now, and you can all laugh at me. I'm back on the upswing.

Thanks for the tips re relying on more sources than just Google Analytics, however. When the website upgrade happens I'll put in one or more PW boxes and so have a broader view.

I actually feel much better all over... I was skirting on the edges of burn-out and it looks like all I needed was a long weekend with a whole lot of turkey (it was Thanksgiving up here in Canada) and NO WRITING. Burn-out, a whole other topic; maybe at some point I'll start a thread on that. Super-short version of how to avoid it: self-awareness.

Okay, I am TOTALLY going to stop freaking, obsessing and whining now. I just had a commenter who was moved to tears by my work go over and say so on the Tales of MU forum. Now the hard part is going to be NOT refreshing analytix every five minutes.

If you weren't already laughing at me you can start now.

Thinking of how to leverage said mention into general weblit promotion...

I'm in the same boat as you, Karen; I look at my analytics and despair; I'm getting fewer and fewer hits as the days go by. But I can't let that be my reason for doing this; I write for the story, not to have impressive numbers. If I wanted numbers, I would be Sue Grafton. Oh, wait, she writes those alphabet books, nm.

Anyhoo, I remind myself that the readers I have are loyal, I keep doing what I have been doing, and I stay open for new chances. I've recently begun a conversation with a webcomic artist whose work I greatly admire, and he seems to be liking my stuff! Who knows where this might lead? Plus, I can log into my site and see guests online, once as many as 16 simultaneously! Yet the analytics page says that no one likes me. I have to choose what I believe.

I get a few hits on my site, probably because 1) I don't have time to update it now (have a 2 month old girl to look after and 2) my story is not one of the 'bestsellers'. *shrug*

I obsess about page views too. I try not to let it affect me, but when I notice them dropping I'm like "omg what am I doing wrong?!" without thinking of the fact that I often do the same to other serials (ie not read them for a short while because life has become unexpectedly busy).

But, yes. I have avoided installing special analytics because I know just using wordpress stats consoles me - it's not going to be exact, so I can't obsess about it too much!

I still check my stats twice a day, but I'm trying to get down to once a day. I get emails if anyone comments. Unless I see some emails, knowing how many hits there are, or how much spam there is (always quite a bit of referrer spam), just wastes my time.