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Blogger and other non-WordPress users: Skip this section.

Unlike Google Analytics, WordPress.com Stats is a plugin and service that’s only available for WordPress blogs (it can be hosted by WordPress.com itself or be self-hosted). It’s a free service; however, it requires an API key, which can be obtained by registering at WordPress.com.

If you’ve installed and activated the JetPack plugin in the previous chapter, you should already have this feature ready and available to you as Site Stats in the admin menu (after having configured your API key, of course). Alterna- tively, you can still install the plugin on its own and forgo the rest of JetPack. This applies at the time of writing; in the future, though, you might not be able to do so anymore.

WordPress statistics give you a nice snapshot of where your traffic is coming from, what search engine keywords lead people to find to your site, and which of your articles and pages are popular at the moment. Unfortunately, the simple interface offers little else. It’s also limited in practice, showing these metrics for only the past few days.

I’ve found the interface (shown in Figure 10, WordPress Stats, on page 61) to be somewhat slow as well, at least when you start receiving many hundreds or thousands of pageviews per day.

Despite its evident shortcomings, you may still want to install it when you wish to quickly glance at incoming traffic in a way that’s faster than logging in and checking Google Analytics.

Figure 10—WordPress Stats

Clicky

Blogger and other non-WordPress users: Resume reading here.

Clicky is an excellent real-time web analytics suite.5 It offers many of the same features as Google Analytics while having the advantage of being able to show you data for visitors who arrived on your site mere seconds ago. (At this stage, its real-time capabilities are far more advanced than those offered by Google.)

Clicky also includes many unique features that are not available with Google Analytics, as shown in their comparison page at getclicky.com/#theotherguys. One of my favorite premium features is called Spy. It allows you to see details of who is currently on your site, as shown in Figure 11, Clicky Spy, on page 62. I find Clicky to be invaluable for determining what’s causing a current traffic spike.

As a user of the Chrome browser, I also enjoy using its Clicky Monitor extension,6 which allows me to quickly check on my sites’ stats without typing anything. The number on the Clicky icon acts as an in-browser traffic notifier, 5. getclicky.com

Figure 11—Clicky Spy

showing the concurrent number of visitors on the currently selected site (if you have more than one configured). From time to time, I glance at it, and if I see a particularly large number, I investigate the spike.

Support for more platforms, including apps for iOS and Android can be found in the Apps & Plugins page at getclicky.com/user/#/help/apps-plugins.

Clicky is inexpensive, but it is a premium service. Its free plan lacks a number of premium features and is currently limited to recording just the first three thousand pageviews per day. Still, the real-time nature of the stats that are available for free subscribers may make it worth signing up for, even if you don’t want to pay for the premium plans. (Expenses can add up. Opt for free subscription plans and only upgrade to paid versions when strictly needed.) Installing Clicky on your blog is very similar to the procedure for including Google Analytics. After you’ve signed up and set up your site at getclicky.com, either obtain and install a dedicated plugin (e.g., Clicky by Yoast) or edit your footer to include the tracking code.

If you want to use both Google Analytics and Clicky, like I do, simply place Clicky’s tracking code above that of Google Analytics.

As with Google Analytics, we’ll explore how to get the best from Clicky in Chapter 8, Understanding Traffic Statistics, on page 145. For the time being, feel free to explore the suite on your own.

So which of the three should you install? You really need to have Google Analytics, so the choice of a second option is between WordPress.com Stats and Clicky. Installing both isn’t a problem, but if I had to pick just one, I’d go with Clicky. Its insight into your visitors’ browsing behavior and large list of unique features make it a perfect real-time complement to Google Analytics.

4.3

Customize Your Sidebar

Your main sidebar is a crucial component of your blog. In fact it will be shown prominently on virtually every page of your blog. Its position, usually on the right of your article’s content, makes it prime blog real estate that should be allocated wisely.

As you learn more from this book and gather real-world experience as a blogger, you can revisit your sidebar to customize its contents however you like.