Satama (part of Trainers’ House) has created quick and easy reports for users of Google Analytics. You can get key metrics e-mailed to you weekly or monthly. This is an example taken from my blog. I have not been as active lately, mainly due to my new job. I do, however, have plenty of inspiration and intend to blog more frequently. Looking at the data I see it’s quite clear that it’s not a good idea to decrease the posting frequency. Blogs are content driven, and you need to keep producing new posts if you want to avoid a drop in traffic.

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Dagens Media recently wrote about three Swedish bloggers and quoted their number of unique visitors (browsers). The blogs are kissie.blogg.se (unknown) , blondinbella.se (20,000 per day), and kenzas.se (22,000 per week).

Aftonbladet published a similar article.

Advertisers like to hear how many unique visitors websites get. As you may have noticed before, I am a big fan of performance marketing and not much of a fan of CPM or fixed-rate advertising.

Advertisers should always look at how unique visitors are measured (first-party cookies, third-party cookies, persistent cookies, session cookies, daily counts, weekly counts, etc.). You should also check whether non-human visitors, like crawlers, are excluded from visitor counts.

The bloggers mentioned use measurement tools from the following suppliers:

Kissie: Tailsweep
Blondinbella: Nielsen//NetRatings
Kenzas: Nielsen//NetRatings, Tailsweep, and Blogtoplist

For unique visitor counts to be as accurate as possible, persistent first-party cookies are necessary. It’s also recommended to measure as short periods of time as possible since longer periods of time increase the risk that cookie deletion skews the count.

When WebAnalysts.Info checked the aforementioned websites, unique visitor counts were not as accurate as possible. Should advertisers care? Depends on how they pay.

CPM and fixed rates: yes (actions are not necessary for website owners to get paid)

CPA and CPC: not as much (actions are necessary for website owners to get paid)

While I’m at it, I think that lists such as KIAindex that list number of visitors, visits, and page views are overrated. They are fun to look at, but you shouldn’t base how much you’re willing to pay for ad space based on them. You can use lists to find websites were you can potentially get the most volume in terms of orders or leads, but size isn’t all that matters. Audience and context should not be forgotten. Nor should the long tail. Focus on performance marketing no matter where you advertise.

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There was a time when Omniture was called MyComputer.com, IndexTools was black and yellow, HitBOX could be found at World 1000, and WebTrends used a guy in a flannel shirt to convince companies to buy. In the mood for nostalgia? Look no further!

The origin of WebSideStory (February 1998)

WebTrends had a futuristic look (April 1999)

Was this a sign? WebSideStory was green long before it was swallowed by Omniture (October 1999)

Nedstat had a clean design (August 2000)

Coremetrics logo looked different (February 2001)

Omniture didn’t always have a slick name, a slick design, and an extensive offering (June 2001)

Not yet Omniture (November 2001)

IndexTools had a different profile (January 2002)

Meet Mr. Flannel. Is it just me or does he look unhappy?

Omniture is here! I think she played an elf in Lord of the Rings later on (May 2002)

Visual Sciences had time to change looks a few times (September 2002)

Eric has demystified web analytics for years (March 2004)

Not enough? Get your own WebTrends box today!

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