Posted in Essay — 23 Jan 2020

When Site Stats Do Matter

I don’t care about the number of visits to my blog, I certainly <a href="https://gr36.com/i-dont-feel-interesting/">don’t feel interesting enough</a> to get the volume I do, but I do value what readers bring to me. So I have started to look at behaviour stats for my blog and try and work out some engagement with my readers, with a view in increasing feedback.
These sorts of stats do matter to me, because I want to see when and where people stop reading and understand how to keep people engaged with me. Not because I want to manipulate them and monetise them like the standard technology obsession. There is no attention economy here. I do want to build up a conversation with them and encourage replies to my posts.
I am not obsessed with this, but much as <a href="https://gabz.me/2020/01/10/engage-like-a.html">Gabz wrote about</a>, I want some real interaction from my posts. I desire conversation and even push back. Reading a post and nothing happening is as useful as a Twitter ‘like’. I want interaction from people, and the best way for me to do this is to look at where readers go to on my site and what clicks.
One down side is that Google Analytics is almost impossible to get the hang of straight away for a lowly blogger like me, so I might have to look at alternatives shortly. I have also found that lots of organic traffic from search seems to bounce straight off so I may have a task on my hands. But I’m going to try. In the mean time I am learning new skills and understanding user flow so this task is not a complete waste of time.
Stats still don’t rank high on my priorities for reader numbers or website clicks, Humans do – so how do I talk to them?