Individual post visitor counter with Google Analytics

Installing separate visitor counter for each individual blog post is a frequent blogger request. So far, we can only install visitor counter for the whole blog, not for individual post. However, with Google Analytics which store an enormous amount of data plus allow you to analyze the data in great number of ways, it is now possible to have a pseudo individual post visitor counter (or on closer inspection, it is not pseudo but real provide you choose a relevant keyword to filter).

Now if you are logged into Google Analytics Dashboard, click on CONTENT > CONTENT BY TITLE, you will see a box for FILTER PAGE TITLE (see screen shot below):



Type into the box a suitable keyword to help identify the post for which you want to check and click GO. You will see a list of blog post titles with the number of pageviews etc. For example, I want to see how many pageviews were there for posts containing the word "categories", I type in the word "categories" and filter and you can see the results in the screen shot above.

Now you may even try to filter Google Analytics data by blog title by typing in the full title into the box to filter. For example, I typed in "3 column templates by Thur" and found that there were a total of 253 pageviews for that particular post (see screen shot below):

Google Analytics Site Layout obscure blog problem

I wrote about Google Analytics and Site Overlay yesterday which places an overlay over your blog with a tiny box and a number indication the numbers (percentage) of page views through as you can see in the screen shot below:



There was one small problem. Even when you want to view the blog normally, those tiny boxes obscure the links making them unreadable. I also vaguely remembered someone else had complained about it on the Web.

Now it is easy to solve that little problem, just log out of your Google Analytics account. That is perhaps easier said than done because most blogger will be using a single browser with tabs and wants to be signed in for either their Blogger account and/or AdSense account and most likely all of them share a single Google Account. Sign out of Google Analytics and you will be signed out of the other accounts as well.

If you are facing this problem and want to solve it, what I suggest is to use an account for Blogger which is different from those for Google Analytics and AdSense (if you are an AdSense publisher). That is, have the same Google account for Google Analytics and AdSense but a different account for Blogger.

If you currently have the some Google Account for all, open 2 browsers (read about why I have many browsers). For example, open Firefox and Internet Explorer. In one browser, create another email address to be used for the Blogger account if you don't already have one.

In the other browser, sign into your other Blogger account (and Google Analytics if you wish). You can be signed in for both because different browsers have different cache and cookies. In the Blogger Dashboard, go to SETTINGS > PERMISSION, invite yourself with the new/different email address.

Switch to the first browser and go to your (new?) email address. There will be an email from Blogger inviting you to be a co-author of your blog/s. Accept the invitation.

Swithch to the second browser and Blogger Dashboard, go to SETTINGS > PERMISSION and you will find your second email address as a co-author. Make that an administrator. If you don't really want to have 2 authors for your blog, you can remove the first one (AFTER MAKING SURE THE SECOND ONE IS ALREADY AN AMINISTRATOR). You can then use the second email (Blogger account) for your blog/s and retain the first one for your Google Analytics (and AdSense if your are and AdSense publisher).

Now whenever you want to have both Blogger and Google Analytics signed in at the same time, just use 2 different browsers and you will no longer be bothered by those little boxes obscuring your links.

Visitor counter - Google Analytics

Most bloggers will like to have information on their visitors. For me, I have been quite satisfied with Statcounter which had up till now, given me those statistics I want. Other reasons for using Statcounter are, it is real time, there is a choice of visible and invisible counter.

Way back, I had briefly played with Google Analytics but found the amount of information a little bit overwhelming and thought I don't need all that much information and I don't have that much time to check the statistics anyway.

That is, until recently. What prompted me to have a second look at Google Analytics was that link in my Google AdSense report "Integrate your AdSense with Google Analytics" (or something like that, from memory because after integrating, the link now says "Go to your Google Analytics Account".

When I had the time, I did dig deeper into the Google Analytics statistics and found many reasons why you should check it out too.

One of the statistics from Statcounter is the screen resolutions of visitors which when I started blogging, showed that a substantial percentage of visitor still used the small 800x600 resolution. Because of that, I had stuck to Ramani's 3 column fixed width Minima template which fits nicely into the whole width of a 800x600 screen.

As time went by, the visitor statistics showed that visitors with 800x600 screen resolution have become a small minority which made me switch to a wider 4 column Minima template which width fits nicely into a 1024x768 screen. However, one thing in the Statcounter screen resolution troubled me, the relatively large number with screen UNKNOWN.



Google Analytics too have statistics for visitors screen resolution, but I discovered, much more detailed. As you can see in the screen shot above, Statcounter only gives 6 screen resolutions, one of them being UNKNOWN. Compare it with the screen shot below for Google Analytics. Google Analytics gives 10 screen resolutions, and there is no UNKNOWN. So Google Analytics have given me some assurance that the percentage of the 800x600 small screen is really small. I no longer have the worry that the among the large number of UNKNOWN in Statcounter statistics were hidden more small screens.



Another interesting statistics from Google Analytics is the Site Overlay. You can view which links have been clicked and the percentage. I have the label list in the first right sidebar, but I was doubtful if visitors ever click on them to find more information. Google Analytics Site Overlay shows this information as you can see from the screen shot below:



It is a nice feeling to know one's label list is being used. The site overlay will also show which links main page (home page) in the post have been clicked (actually it is the pageview) as you can see from the screen shot below:



However there are a number of things that Google Analytics Site Overlay does not track and one of them are Javascript. So if you are an AdSense publisher expecting to see which of your ads are being clicked, I am afraid you will be disappointed as AdSense uses Javascript.

There is some concern that Google Analytics may slow down site downtime. I think this is a small concern if you paste Google Analytics codes just before the </body> tag which will be practically at the bottom of the template and will be the last to load.

Statcounter visitors map and statistics

A blogger complained about maploco being not up to date (not realtime) in their visitor visitors map. Now I am very satisfied with the Statcounter visitors statistics as it gives me all the statistics I want so much so I don't feel the need to switch over or add Google Analytics (which is also not real time while Statcounter is real time). In fact I didn't even bother to dig deeper into what Statcounter had to offer. That is, until today. Today I took the trouble to examine what info I can get from the visitors map. Today I found that you can click on any pin on the map and you will get very detailed about that particular visitor including the town, etc. Refer to screen shot below (click to enlarge):



Also, if you are curious about what other statistics Statcounter gives you, they will include summary, popular pages, entry pages, exit pages, came from, keyword analysis, recent keyword activity, recent came from, search engine wars, visitor paths, visit length, returning visits, recent pageload activity, recent visitor activity, recent visitor map, country/state/city/ISP, browsers, system stats (screen resolutions), lookup IP Address, download logs, and they are all real time data:

Update: I have recently taken a closer look at Google Analytics and found that there are some useful statistics that you can't get from Statcounter which includes individual post visitor counter and site overlay

Blogger Beta: Adding advertisement (and hit counter)

NOTE: This post was published when AdSense ads could not be displayed on a Blogger blog, but that had been fixed. There were a few updates which some readers seem to miss as one comment showed, so I hope you will read through the whole post. Maybe if I have the time, I should rewrite the post
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It is now easier to add things like advertisements and hit counter, etc. to a Blogger Beta blog. For example, you want to add an Amazon advertisement to your blog. All you have to do is to go to layout (see screenshot below) You will see a section at the top where you can edit the header, a section in the middle where you can edit the appearance of your post, sections on the right where you see a section "Add a Page Element". This will be the section that we will be using to add an Amazon ad to the right sidebar. Below that section are two sections where you can edit the Archives and the About Me section. Below the post and the sidebar sections will be the footer sections where you see another "Add a Page Element" where you can add things like a copyright notice, hit counter, etc. In this case, a hit counter has been added, and you see that just below the "Add a Page Element" section (where you see HTML/JavaScript).

We will now describe how to add the Amazon ad. First, you sign into the Amazon Associate site and generate the script. Copy the script, then go to the Blogger Beta layout page, and click on the "Add a Page Element". A pop-up will appear (see screenshot below)
All you have to do now is to paste the script into the box and click "Save Changes" and once it is done, it will appear below the "Add a Page Element" section. Now that it has been added, you can preview the result, and if you do not like the position, you can drag it to the position you want. All you need to do is to hover your mouse over the Page element. The cursor will change into a cross (see screenshot below. Highlighted with a red circle and an arrow pointing to it):



You can, for example, below the "About Me" section. No more having to squint through long list of HTML to figure out where to paste the script. Isn't this easier than the old method?

Latest Update: Got a response from AdSense Help. They said they have resolved the problem that was preventing Google ads from appearing on Blogger beta pages. You no longer need to modify the code. I have tested that by adding a Wide Skyscraper Ad unit to the sidebar using the method detailed above without any modification to the code, and it displayed without problem. You can see it at Testing Blogger Beta. (close new window to get back to this page)

Adding a hit counter like statcounter

You can read about how to generate the script for a hit counter by surfing over to (WILL CONTINUE EDITING LATER)

Update on statcounter: Someone commented that statcounter in Blogger Beta doesn't work for individual post page. I decided to check that out by checking my statcounter statistics. I viewed the "Popular Pages" and found that there were hits counted for individual post pages, so it proves that statcounter added in the way described in the link does work. If you want to see a screenshot of that statistic, surf over to Problem with statcounter in Blogger Beta? (close new window to get back to this page). The screenshot is at the bottom of the page.

Update 23 February 2007: A reader complained of not being able to add statcounter in New Blogger. I have added statcounter into many blogs in the manner described above, some of them without ticking "XHTML Comppliant" and they worked, as I have explained in the update above. However, if you want to be sure, tick "XHTML Compliant" to generate the script for the statcounter (see screenshot below). For me, I have found that there is no difference, but if you are having problem, try that and see. Note that if you are reinstalling statcounter, you don't have to start from scratch. When reinstalling, click the spanner icon to start off from where you left off.




Books from Amazon

The Rational Guide to Google Blogger (Technical accuracy is assured by Biz Stone, Former Senior Specialist on the Google Blogger Team)

101 ways to Boost Your Web Traffic: Internet Marketing Made Easier

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