Are you constantly checking your blog stats? Have you become a stataholic?

With new bloggers, it understandable that you check your stats often. You want, what you’ve written, to be read. After all, you started blogging to share with the world, what you feel is valuable information.

I’ve been a stataholic. When I first started blogging, I checked my stats every few hours. I’ve stopped that. My Google Analytics, AwStats and Webalizer are updated once a day, so checking those more often, is useless. The other stats I have enabled, are WordPress stats and Feedburner. I usually check those, about three times a day.

Checking stats can take away from the other priorities in your life. If you have another job, checking stats can distract you from your work, and possibly compromise your position. If you work at home, or are blogging after work, checking stats can take you away from the most important things in life-family and friends.

Checking stats often can also affect your mood. See the numbers go up, you’re happy. See a decrease, and your mood can plummet like the numbers. See the numbers remain static, and you get frustrated. Do you get the picture? Your stats can put you on an emotional roller coaster ride of hills and valleys.

To stop checking your stats so often, is like entering into a 12 step program. You first have to admit, you are a stataholic. Realize that checking your stats is affecting your mood, which in turn, can affect your creativity.

Set a limit for yourself. Allow yourself to check your stats 3 time a day-morning, noon, and night.

What’s the age of your blog? A new blog’s stats may remain low for months, especially if you’re not publishing indexable content.

Learn from your stats. Do you need to concentrate more on keyword density? Meta Tags? , etc… Do you need to “clean up your site” i.e. do you have too many flashing banners, or have a site that’s difficult for your readers to “read” i.e. do you have a dark background and/or small fonts? Ask a trusted friend for constructive criticism.

Look at the big picture. Hourly statistics are only a small pie of the pie. Remember the law of exponential growth. Increases in your stats every month will result in tons of traffic over time.

Concentrate on publishing good, quality content. If you can share valuable information with readers, the stats will follow. It all takes time.

Are you a stataholic? Have you been a stataholic? Leave me a comment, and share your story.