Monday, April 19, 2010

Truth and Consequences, New Mexico: This One's for YOU

So, I did something bad.  Not killed-a-drifter bad or wrote-in-a-library-book bad, but bad in Veronica Land.


I signed up for Google Analytics.  Seasoned bloggers are already anticipating my problem and shaking their knowledgeable heads.  Non-bloggers are like jigga-what?  


I'll tell you what.  Google Analytics is a tracking device that tells you how many people visit your site, on which days, how long they stay, and where in the world they live.  The problem?  Well, they are many-fold (or two-fold):


Number one.  I had a major freak-out the first time I checked the data and saw how many people visited my blog over the course of a few days. 



Like, I may or may not have burst out singing "She blogs HARD for the money!!" -- even though I have yet to be paid for my mad genius blogging skillz.  


I was alone, so there was no embarrassment to shake off, but singing a parody of "She Works Hard for the Money" reminded me that McDonald's had used it for a jingle, and then I thought of bad food and the fats, and I was grossed out.  Plus, McDonald's is all evil and everything, which everyone knows, and I hate thinking about evil things.  But, then again, they do have Egg McMuffins, which are amazing and basically saved my life during my first trimester.  So maybe McDonald's isn't THIS evil:
and just THIS evil:

But seriously, it was a bit overboard to get as excited as I did.


Second problem.  Since I know when people are visiting and where they are visiting from, I have a million questions.


For example, how did I garner the attention of countries such as Pakistan, Macau, Uruguay, South Korea, and Sri Lanka?  And how do I get MORE of their attention?  


(It's hard to see, but all countries with light green have visited a handful of times)

And what about all the countries who have yet to visit?  Look at Russia.  No hits.  And I got no love from China.  Well, I am probably blocked over there, but that doesn't seem to be a good enough reason.

So should I have some specific Russian-friendly content to attract the Russians mixed with something about ... um, fish? ... to keep my readers from Sweden?

And don't even get me started about the U S of A.  



I mean, what did I do to South Dakota?  Probably all the cursing about snow. You think?  And New Mexico?  I LOVE the land of Enchantment.  I have never actually BEEN there, but I hear it is lovely.  Plus it has cities with names like "Truth and Consequences."  Fan-freaking-tastic.

But I only need to attract five states to fill up the map, and that's not bad at all.  So now I need some feedback from y'all.  (See how I am relating to the Southern readers there?  Smooth, right?)  What do I do to reel those states in?

And finally, it seems that my readership peaks on Wednesdays.


I don't even know what to do with that exactly.  I'm sure it has something to do with people trying to get through humpday.  But if I have my super-bestest stuff on Wednesdays, then maybe more people will follow and comment. Because, bottom line?  After I got all overly excited, I checked my followers. Did I have any more?  NO.  Did I start getting more comments?  NO.


Sigh.  All of that brain power, wasted.  And I actually sat down and imagined an evil golden arches and a less-evil golden arches.  


Did that get me any new followers?  ...


Nope.


I need to get Jeremy to say some more funny stuff so I can just transcribe him.  That man is a gold mine (and I know because Google Analytics told me so).

11 comments:

  1. Well I'm a little pissed that Wisconsin is only light green. I am working my ass off on page views AND comments and according to your little do-da blog commenting box I'm #1. What the fuck, Google??

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  2. Welcome down the obsessive path of visitor monitoring! I get all OCD about it too - readership drops off on the weekends for some reason, maybe people are checking at work?

    I'm helping with making Canada green on yer map! :p

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  3. do you know what's crazy? Some of those little comment things say I'm in Ohio but I'm Not. I can walk there, but I'm not there. So I don't know if my lurking counts for WV or OH. And just so you know, the only reason I lurk is because of my phone. My phone is what I usually use to read blogs when bored in public & it hates to let me comment then I get home & forget all the blogs I Meant to comment on.

    You could just find bloggers in those states and ask them to come say hi and have a multiple shade of green and no white map. As for Russia... I have no idea. I wonder why they don't like blogs there... Since they obviously must not like any blogs to have not visited.

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  4. Lol you are too funny. I like looking at my stats but I don't look into them too much. I blog to blog if they read fine if they don't no biggie :) happy monday!

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  5. @Oneredwall: Mine does that too, though instead of giving me Halifax, it gives me a small town waaaay down the coast called Lunenburg. I think it might be our providers cheaping out and using that bandwith?

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  6. This means you have to do the obligatory "Look what freakazoid search terms brought people to my blog" post. Always awesome.

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  7. Dude. Michigan is so up your butt!

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  8. I like to think that light green Louisiana is all me. You're welcome!

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  9. Once you've looked there's no going back :) I'm not sure what Montana has against me. I like IT!

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  10. HAHA! I'll keep WA green for ya! ;) If I hadn't already been following, the evil golden arches for sure would have pursued me.

    -Becca

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  11. OMG I'm catching up on your blog today and reading posts I missed. It's WEDN--- oh no wait, it's Thursday. Whew. I was going to get REALLY creeped out there for a moment. Tomorrow's Friday!! YAY!!

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