Random Thoughts

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As a new blogger the one thing that I want most is traffic. I spend hours each day finding ways to market my blog, posting comments and using social networking sites. Is it possible that I’m wasting my time? Yes, I believe that it’s very possible that some of my time is being wasted on activities that don’t get results. None of us want to spend time doing something that produces little or no results, but how do you avoid that in the blogging world?

The simple answer is to install Google Analytics. I installed Google Analytics on both my blogs and am very pleased with the detail that I’m able to see. Everyday I look through my Google Analytics control panel and analyze it in detail. Where is my traffic coming from? Am I getting traffic from search engines? Am I getting traffic from that social networking site that I spend 2 hours per day surfing? All of these questions can be answered by installing a little code in your wordpress blog. All you have to do is sign up for an account and install a little piece of code on your blog and you’re set. You don’t even need to be a geek to figure out where to paste the code. Here’s how you do it:

1. In your control panel, go to “presentation” and “theme editor”

2. On the right side, find and open the “footer.php” file.

3. Scroll down to the bottom of the footer page and find the </body> tag.

4. Paste the code just before the </body> tag and save your changes.

Now you just have to wait a few minutes for Google Analytics to find the code and you will be able to view detailed traffic statistics.