One of the treats with a WordPress based website is how easy it is to measure results of your posts and other marketing activity. What gets measured gets done and the plugins discussed in this post can help. 
Of course you can get all this from Google Analytics, and if your hosting company provides the server host logs, in programs like AWStats, Webalizer and Analog those too. But you have to login in to those services. I think it is great as long as your are in the Admin area of your WordPress based website to see how your site traffic is while you are right there … writing a post, approving comments or otherwise updating the site.
Below are four WordPress stat plugins that I like. Not sure which one I like better, they all provide a little bit different view of your site traffic and depth. They are all current (as of this post date) work well with WP 3.0 and fortunately they all seem compatible with one another.
If you have activated Akismet (and you should) you should also install and activate WordPress.com Stats. It uses the same API key that you use in Akismet. WordPress.com Stats provides an excellent data set for quick review with nice “drill-down” functionality. All the data is processed in WordPress’ servers so this plugin will not slow down your site or load your server. Very fast. Ultra easy to setup.
This plugin was developed by Alex King for MailChimp. (Alex is also the author of the indispensible Twitter Tools plugin.) Analytics360 allows you to pull your Google Analytics data into your WordPress dashboard for easy review TOGETHER with your MailChimp data. In one panel you can see how your posts and email are driving site traffic. Trends in site traffic and list growth. And your site’s top traffic sources.
This plugin does require Google Analytics (also free) and will work with or without MailChimp, but the basic MailChimp account is free and allows you a list of up to 500 addresses and 3000 sent emails per month. If you don’t already have Google Analytics tracking in your site, Google Analyticator is a very simple to use plugin that makes placing the Google Analytics script easy.
I am liking Clicky more and more; it has very easy to read, useful interface and uses your real time site data. Joost de Valk (a true WordPress SEO master) created a new Clicky plugin to take advantage of the many new statistical features offered by Clicky. The basic Clicky stat account is free and provides some unique views of your website traffic. It is simple and quick to setup a Clicky account and then install and enable the Clicky plugin.
“Woopra is the world’s most comprehensive, information rich, easy to use, real-time Web tracking and analysis application.” And I find that somehow the Woopra’s WordPress plugin stat reporting interface is fun to use (“fun” and “stats” don’t normally go together) and again provides some unique perspectives into your site visitors and traffic. Like all the other plugins listed here you will need an account for the data tracker, but the basic Woopra account is free and simple to setup. Just visit the Woopra website and sign up. Then place the script in your site’s footer, activate the plugin and you are good to go.
May you have great measurements! If you have any questions just email me. All four of the tools are running on this site.
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- The Power of Organic Search Ranking Compared to Adwords – a 9 to 1 Favorite!
- A Dream Wedding by Sharon Replaces Their Old Bludomain Flash Website with a New WordPress Site
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