I have been frequenting many forums for the past 3-4 days and I found this question of when to show your blog stats by a member named Glblbuy. I have given my views in short in the article, 3 Must Do Things For A New Blogger, I wrote for the Daily Blog Tips contest. It was just a part of that article. In this post, I wanted to be more specific. Your blog might be brand new or it might be a blog with good number of readers and subscribers. But what is the right time to show your stats?
There are various stats you have for your blog:
1. Subscribers
2. Alexa
3. Technorati
Now let me just go deep into every category. And before reading this, understand that whatever I write here are just my opinion and you are free to do a counter of what I say.
1. Subscribers:
You maybe using various options for getting subscribers like FeedBurner, FeedBlitz or Zookoda. Whatever you use, you are given the option to view your number of subscribers. Keep track of it. If you ask me, the right time to show your feedburner count is after you reach 500 or at least after you reach 400. This is because when you have a less count, people don't tend to sign up for your feeds. Many say 100 would easily do. But if you want to be a professional blogger and want your blog to look professional, show your stats after it reaches 400. If you wish to become an established blogger, then in no time you would reach it. As far as I know, not even a single established blogger has less than 400 subscribers. If you think this is tough to reach, then getting yourself to be called an established blogger is also hard. So please wait till your blog reaches 400. If you don't have the time to wait till that, then wait till you get a 3 digit count. Now you can also increase my subscriber's count by subscribing to my blog.
2. Alexa:
Alexa is not a correct measure. It won't show the best of stats. But there are things like sponsored reviews which depend on your alexa rank. Also if you have an Alexa rank of less than 25,000, you are for sure an established blogger. Though Alexa is an incorrect measure, you should care for it too. Alexa has a tool which will show blog's alexa rank publicly. I would say that, the best time to show your blog's alexa rank is when you reach the top 100,000. Don't show it when you have a 6 digit or 7 digit figure(Thanks to Shankar who once told me about this). When you have it a six digit figure, people sometimes wrongly conclude that your blog is not a good one or your blog is not well known. It is always better to show after you reach 100,000(99,999 to be more appropriate).
3. Technorati:
Technorati ranking and authority has become a major part for every blog. If you have a technorati rank less than 20,000, then you are considered a good blogger. And if you have it to be less than 5000, you are a great blogger. The top 100 bloggers are the experts and Gurus. You can see a post about Hierarchy of successful bloggers in Daily Blog Tips. The right time to show your technorati stats is once you enter the top 20k. Although it is a bit tough to reach, with extra hard work you can reach it. For ex: If you link to this article from your blog, I would get a good technorati ranking [:)]. Once you reach top 20k show it in your blog if you wish. It will promote your blog and it will also lead to more bloggers link to your blog.
These are my opinions on the blog's stats. You can tell you views in comments, or in your blog with a link to this article(Increasing my technorati ranking so that I can show it soon). When will you show your stats? Also please tell me in comments if I had left any other stats so that I can include it in the next part.
Update:
Take the poll about stats from here.
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Friday, July 20, 2007
The Right Time To Show You Blog's Stats
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15 comments:
I think that one can display the stats whenever they want. Why should one be ashamed of the stats ?
ReviewSaurus,
There is nothing like ashamed. It is to just give a blog some professional look, people don't show their stats. Also as I said, these are just my opinion and you can do the counter. I don't tell that everyone should follow this. Just my opinion. Thanks for your comment.
I agree, far to often people throw up meaningless stats on websites and blogs. It only serves to shoot them in the foot.
b. Durant, Rightly said. I'm a firm believer that one should show the stats only after it has got to a good reach. This will help in many ways which one might not be knowing now. Please do take the poll. Thanks for your comment.
I appreciate posts like this. While I am pretty much the #1 blog in my "niche" (celebrity fan blogging for Stephen Colbert), sometimes it's hard to figure out if technically I'm a Good Blogger. I am strong in two of the three categories you mention - I have a Technorati rank of 12,945 and 470 feed subscribers. But my Alexa ranking is not nearly as strong (505,766).
I much prefer my ranking in Quantcast (108,498), as it tends to be more based on my hits as opposed to adding the amount of ads in the ranking formula as I believe that Alexa does. I only have Amazon ads on my blog, so I'm not a strong monetizer. (Is that the correct word?) But I read a LOT of blogs such as this, blogs that touch on How To Blog, and I haven't seen hardly anything about Quantcast mentioned when it comes to reliable site stats.
Ram -
I mean absolutely no disrespect by this comment. In fact I found your post quite thought provoking. Here's my question - your technorati rank is Rank: 91,854, your Alexa rank is 348,871 - why would someone take your advice on blogging, when by your own words you're not yet considered a "good blogger" ("If you have a technorati rank less than 20,000, then you are considered a good blogger")
Again, no disrespect at all meant, I'm just curious about your thoughts on this. Cheers!
db Freguson,
Glad that you liked this post. Congrats on being #1 in your niche. It is very great to achieve it no matter the niche is small or vast. Coming to Quantcast, the stats you have been using, I haven't heard much of it. As I started blogging only 60 days ago and I'm not much familiar with few stats. So if I get to know about it more, I will write on it surely. Thanks.
Ross, I very much expected this question and I'm glad you asked it.
Here's what:
I said 20,000 technorati rank and 100,000 alexa rank are the good one to show. And as you said I don't have a technorati rank and alexa of that mark. But does anyone know it unless I show them up in my blog? Maybe they will find alexa rank with the toolbar. But not many consider it when they see on the toolbar. Also I see that you went through my "blogs that link here" option and found out the technorati ranking. Not everyone does this. In fact no one ever does this. They can see your stats only when you put it up on your blog.
Coming to "how will they take my words", I have offered some points which I think is true and in my opinion it is what everyone should know. People read it mostly without seeing the stats and if they find the article really good, they will take the points. If they don't agree with few they will leave alone those points. All blogs have to come from a seven digit alexa rank to 5 digit. So Im in the journey to the 5 digit. Also I haven't anywhere quoted that Im a good blogger or an established blogger.
I take no offense in your views and questions. In fact I expected it to come. I hope I didn't offend you or any blogger in anyway. Thanks for your thoughts.
Hi. I just found your blog and this is one of the articles that I read because I am new to blogging and am learning from blogs like yours. Thanks for the information. I have been advised to wait on posting my stats until I have been blogging long enough for them to be favorable. That makes sense to me. My first article came out on June 1, 2007.
Great advice. Two of the other good reasons for showing or hiding your stats are the laws of influence known as "social proof" and "authority".
If someone claims to be an authority on something, and they're showing a FeedBurner stat of 7 subscribers, it doesn't matter how much of an expert the person is... the visitor may well think, "Why hasn't anyone else signed up then"?
The reverse is also true. When you're showing FeedBurner stats of, say, 1,000 or more... people think, "Well, 1000 people view him/her as an authority, I'd better do the same..."
Crazy, but true :)
Best,
Paul Hancox
P.S: Pop by, and say hello... because I'd really appreciate it!
Patricia, Thanks and I'm glad that you liked the article. Yes my advise is the same. Wait till you have some good stats to show. This will get you good results.
Paul, Thanks and I agree with you too. When your feedburner stats show 10 or 20 no one will come forward to sign up. But if it is 1000, then the chances of people signing up will increase by 500%.
Ram,
I think 100 for feedburner,
I dont care abt Alexa.
An evil way to do it is faking it like Kumiko believes.
Cheers!
Mani
Mani,
I think 100 is not bad. Showing it at 100 will be fine.
Alexa is not a correct measure. But still I believe it should be shown after you get a 5 digit number.
Thanks for your comment (Wonder what is Kumiko's evil way)
Alexa is something of a viral hoax - a self-propagating scam - in that the main reason it is considered a worthwhile gauge of your site's traffic or popularity is that it says so. That is, Alexa insists that it's ranking is relevant, bloggers put stock in that self-declared notion, and so poof! it's now considered a yardstick by which nearly every blog site is measured.
I like to equate Alexa to those cheesy, late-night infomercials that hawk "collectible" Nascar plates (with the 24-karat, hand-painted gold rim, of course) - what makes them "collectible" is that the infomercial says they are. Otherwise, they're just crappy plates made in China and stamped with a tacky racecar graphic.
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