Tech Tuesday: Hit Counters

I'm not talking about hitmen here, but hit counters, which are tracking devices for your blog. Many of you already use these, but for Tech Tuesday, I want to encourage some of you newbies to add a hit counter to your blog. I use 2--Sitemeter and Blogpatrol, although there are other ones out there, including Google Analytics, which I'm figuring out at the moment.

These sites track the number of visits to your blog, where in the world that the visitors come from, and how they came to your blog (like which link or website brought them over). There are so many other cool features like the search terms that they used in Google or Yahoo to find your blog. These have proved hilarious at times for Mr. Geek and I, reading the kinds of weird word combos that send people to Katydid and Kid ("mom porn" being the top search term, oddly enough).

Here's what my main page looks like on Sitemeter.
It keeps track of the average visits per day, how many page hits in the last hour, etc. If you'd eventually like to do product reviews or host contests on your blog, these numbers are essential for pitching to companies. Most review sponsors want to know how many people are looking at your website so they can determine whether or not they should take a chance on your blog.

If you visit Sitemeter, for example, it's very easy to set up a FREE account. Just follow their instructions, and they will generate a code for you that you just add as an HTML widget on your blog. You can have the Sitemeter button, or a counter which shows how many people have visited your blog displayed on your blog, or if you don't want people to know that you're tracking them, you can have it set to stealth mode, where nothing is displayed on your blog. Either way, this is a great tool to have and once you get started, it can be addicting to check out who's checking out your blog.