A Year in Blogging (Part II) - The Statistics

Yesterday, I blogged here about the odd circumstances that brought me into the blogging world and I commented on some of my personal favourite blog posts along the way.

Today, it's the hardcore statistics.

Google Analytics & Flag Counter
I began blogging properly a year today, September 4th 2010. I didn't however synch up my blog to the excellent and recommended Google Analytics software (with thanks to Ali Goldsworthy for doing so!) until September 20th. So the stats I am about to unleash doesn't cover the entire year as such but for the sake of a fortnight, I'm happy for these to stand as my figures for my first year in blogging.

For information below on the nations/territories that have visited my blog however, the statistics come from Flag Counter which I added to my blog on September 13th and which therefore has an extra week's worth of statistics over Google Analytics. The numbers that both have thrown up are generally very similar so I have faith in them both, unlike the Blogger Stats from the site itself which in my mind overinflates the pageviews to the blog so I have generally avoided using it for statistical purposes.

Stat Attack
This is my 386th blog post since this day last year. As of this afternoon, according to the reliable Flag Counter and Google Analytics, over 49,000 absolute unique visitors have visited my site and those blog posts in the past 12 months. Of these, some 75.40% are new visitors and 24.60% are returning visitors. According to my Blogger Pageview counter, they has accounted for over 111,000 pageviews made in that time though I tend to believe the more reliable Google Analytics number of 65,000 pageviews.

According to Google Analytics, the bounce rate for my blog during the past year has been 72.51%.

Busiest Month
As my monthly stat reports have shown, there has been an unsurprising general trend of growth in readers to my blog as it has become more established. My busiest month, according to Google Analytics was that of May with 6,485 absolute unique visitors to my blog making 6,908 visits and viewing 9,738 pages.

My busiest month in terms of output mind was January with 42 blog posts published in that month.

Busiest Day
On May 2nd, my Osama Bin Laden's Death - Obama's Victory & Pakistan's Shame blog post clearly hit a nerve and resulted in a daily record of 992 visitors making a record 1,341 pageviews.

Top 10 Most Read Blog Posts

According to Google Analytics, the Top 10 most read blog posts during the past year in terms of pageviews have been:

1. 'The King's Speech' - The Book Vs The Film (SPOILER WARNING!) (4,951 Pageviews)
2. Rory McIlroy - A Leap of Faith to Join the Immortals of Golf (4,763 Pageviews)
3. Has Mark Webber Blown It? (2,884 Pageviews)
4. Labour's Leighton Andrews' Extraordinary Live TV Coco Pops Outburst (1,673 Pageviews)
5. Osama Bin Laden's Death - Obama's Victory & Pakistan's Shame (1,482 Pageviews)
6. My Sports Personality of the Year - Phil 'The Power' Taylor (1,050 Pageviews)
7. As the Yemenese Domino Falls, is Syria next? (842 Pageviews)
8. The Aberfan Perspective (803 Pageviews)
9. An Apology to Karen & Richard Carpenter. Yours Sincerely, A Musical Snob. (771 Pageviews)
10. Wembley Bound with Swansea City AFC (693 Pageviews)

Top 10 Traffic Sources
According to Google Analytics, the Top 10 traffic sources to my blog during the past year in terms of visits have been:

1. Google Organic (15,469 visits)
2. Direct Traffic (6,292 visits)
3. Facebook (4,769 visits)
4. Google.com (3,009 visits)
5. Google.co.uk (2,790)
6. Blogger.com (1,338 visits)
7. Lib Dem Blogs (1,335 visits)
8. Twitter (1,170 visits)
9. Lib Dem Voice (850 visits)
10. rialtocr.blogspot.com (665 visits)

According to Google Analytics, 48.10% of my traffic during the past year have come from referral sites as opposed to 37.40% from search engines and 14.50% from direct traffic.

Top 10 Keywords
According to Google Analytics, the Top 10 Keywords typed into a search engine that have brought visitors to my blog are:

1. Rory McIlroy (1,811 visits)
2. The King's Speech Book (859 visits)
3. Mark Webber (769 visits)
4. Coco Pops (397 visits)
5. Phil Taylor (309 visits)
6. Mark Cole Blog (242 visits)
7. 80th Birthday Poems (184 visits)
8. Lionel Logue (155 visits)
9. Zoe Scott Alan Partridge (148 visits)
10. John Barry (145 visits)
    

A Proudly International Blog!
When it comes to the geography of my readership, I have found Flag Counter to me a more reliable source than Google Analytics as some 276 visits have not been registered with the nation of origin whereas with Flag Counter, this number is only 187.

Therefore, according to Flag Counter, the top ten countries to date (with % of total views and total visitors) are:

1. United Kingdom (49.7%) (24,479 visitors)
2. United States (20.2%) (9,949 visitors)
3. Germany (2.4%) (1,200 visitors)
4. Canada (2.3%) (1,111 visitors)
5. Australia (1.9%) (944 visitors)
6. Ireland (1.5%) (755 visitors)
7. Poland (1.5%) (732 visitors)
8. Denmark (1.3%) (644 visitors)
9. Brazil (1.2%) (609 visitors)
10. France (1.2%) (594 visitors)

During the year, 165 nations or territories have supplied visitors to my blog! If my reckoning is correct, that still leaves another 54 nations/territories left unaccounted for - still work to be done then!

The Next 12 Months
Looking ahead, all I can do is to do what I've done over the past 12 months - to write on issues that interest me. Whether they interest my readers is another matter but for now, a heartfelt thanks to those who visited my site over the past 12 months.

If you've enjoyed reading the blog posts that I've written half as much as I've enjoyed writing them, then it can be put down to being a good partnership!

Please keep reading...