Page views in stats are over rated, and can be inflated.

How? If you click on your own posts, and your stats program is not blocking your own visits, your page views go up.

Example: One day I was feverishly working on my blog. I was all over the place…updating old posts, writing new ones, and rereading others. At the end of the day, I noticed I had a huge spike in page views. Wow! That’s great, I thought….until I realized I created the majority of those page views.

Earlier I wrote about page views, and how it equates to the “stickiness” of your blog. Since then, I have had time to analyze this more closely. With that being said, “stickiness” may also be over rated.

I’m sounding like a pessimist now, aren’t I?

But, take a moment, and follow me on this one.

If you view your stats, you see your visitor counts, and will also see “page views”. This tells you how many pages were viewed when visitors were on your site. If you have researched blogging, you may have read that a higher page view “average”, means your blog has “stickiness”, or readers stick around and read more than the one post that brought them to your site.

And, maybe………….you should you be worried if your page views drop.

I don’t think so.

To me, the growth of a blog is measured in unique visitors and visits.

Time to do some math…..

If you have 10 visitors, and they viewed 10 pages …., that is still only 10 unique visitors, 10 visits, and 100 page views.

But if you have 100 unique visitors, and they all visited your site once, that’s 100 unique visitors, 100 visits, and 100 page views.

Which scenario would you rather have happen on your blog?

Today’s Lesson

A Simple Math Test

Let’s say Asako, comes to my blog, and views 15 pages.(She’s sitting at the cafe, sipping lattes, and relaxing ) The same day Ian, Catherine, Kekoa , Jaseem, and Henk, each view, one page each. Then Nelson, and SpicePuppy come by and view 2 pages each.

I have had 8 visitors. They viewed 24 pages. If that is the only traffic I get for that day, my page views will be 24, and I will have an average of (24/8) 3.0 page views.

Now, when I see that, my first assumption is, “Oh, my blog is “sticky”, my visitors are reading 3.0 pages each” …….not true. One visitor read a lot, but the others didn’t.

I have read “talk” on many sites how a blog has 10,000 page views a day. That sounds pretty impressive. But, what does that really mean? 10,000 visits? 5,000 visitors, viewing two pages each? 2,500 visitors, viewing 4 pages each? 1000 visitors, viewing 10 pages each? Or…..500 visitors (with a lot of time), viewing 20 pages each?

Over the years, I have been on many sites, where I have read (or clicked on) 10 pages, sometimes more. But, I was only one visitor.

I have also read that “page views” is something that’s looked at, if a blog is for sale. To me, looking at page views, and/or hits, can be totally misleading, not to mention, inflated.

On my blogs, if you “come in” on my “home” page (as “direct” traffic), you can read 5 posts in their entirety. If you don’t click on a specific post, I believe your visit is counted as one page view. If I were to have excerpted posts, where you would have to click on each post to read the entire post, I could possibly rack up 5 page views.

Should I switch to excerpted posts to increase my “page view” count? I don’t think so.

When a reader comes to my site, I want to make it as easy as possible for them to read my writings. If they have the time to scroll down the page, and read more than one post, I say “thank you” for giving me that time. To have to click on my posts, to read them in their entirely, may deter my readers from reading the entire post.

Years ago, when I was new to surfing the internet, if I saw (what I know now as an “excerpted” post or article), I didn’t even realize there was more to the story. I just thought, “Wow, that article didn’t say much”. …..on to the next search. If I did that, I know there are many others who do the same. Sadly, in the process, I probably missed out on a lot of great sites and valuable information.

We create our blogs for our readers. We don’t create blogs to gain better statistics, do we?

My goal is to make it as easy as possible for my readers to navigate my pages.

Isn’t that what it’s all about? Or, are we too worried about “page views”?

Today’s Assignment

Based on my analysis….

Look at your page views…..what are they telling you?

Please post your answer in the comment section. Thank You!