I tried Google Trends for website when it hit the scene this week and, like Corvida notes on RWW, it sucks for “normal” blogs.  Which is a pity because it might have been a great, easy tool for people to get the “big picture” on their stats.  Which makes me wonder, have we made stats so hard?

Blog stats and the KISS of death

As I’m pouring over my daily dose of data I think about the bloggers I work with everyday.  They want to know pretty simple things.  What is popular and how much traffic, that pretty much covers it.

It seems that, however, we should be able to provide more information to “normal” folks more easily.

Years ago I used a log-based stats program that had a great “dashboard” concept, you just looked and knew where you were at with red and green arrow.  Woopra has that in a ticker at the bottom of the window (easily overlooked IMHO), Google Analytics has a nice comparative view (given metric vs. the average).  The problem I’ve found is that too often it’s too hard for average or busy bloggers to take advantage of these tools because they just aren’t clear and easy to find.

Yes, WordPress stats are good and simple, but maybe too simple.  See the best kind of webstats would be ones that give you a heads up view of your data and point out “interesting” things for you to delve into more.  The “yo, this is cool, check it out” part is only half the battle though, what people need is the virtual guide to help in the delving process.

Haven’t seen that yet.

I have lots for Woopra in this regard.  GA?  Not so much, unless someone figures out a way to connect to it somehow.

Sigh, I can only hope.

Post from: EveryJoe

Can’t get enough data about my blogs—but how much is enough for everyone else?