Gathering Blogger Statistics

As librarians, statistics are a big part of our jobs. You might be wondering how to get statistics for your Blogger blog. According to this article from the Google Analytics Blog, having access to your Blogger site statistics will *soon* be easier than ever. However, this feature has not yet been implemented. So how do you gather statistics for your blog?

The answer is pretty simple: Sign up for Google Analytics. Here are the "in-a-nut-shell" instructions:

1. Sign up for Google Analytics.
2. Tell Google the URL of the blog.
3. Tell Google who you are.
   
4. Copy some HTML code that Google generates for you.
5. Paste this code into your blog's HTML code.

Read on for the full instructions... (Click on any of the small images to see a larger, clearer version of the image.)

1. Visit Google Analytics and sign up for an account using the same Google or Gmail account you use to sign into your Blogger account. (Remember, Google owns Blogger.)
   
   
2. Provide your Blogger URL. The account name should automatically fill in. Set the time zone, if needed.
   
   
3. Tell Google a little about yourself.
4. Copy the code generated for you by Google Analytics.
   
   
5. Open your Blogger blog.
6. Navigate to Layout >> Edit HTML.
7. Scroll to the bottom of the HTML until you find the HTML tag for closing the body.
   
   
8. Paste the code directly into the space right before the "close body" tag.
   
   
9. After pasting the code, be sure to save the template.
10. Check that your blog looks healthy and normal. (Always a good thing to do after editing the HTML!)
    
11. Navigate back over to your Google Analytics account and check the status of the blog.
    
    
    
12. Most likely you'll get the following message: "Analytics has been successfully installed and data is being gathered now." Expect it to take a while for the statistics to show.
13. That's it! Now you just need to remember to check your blog stats as needed.

A Sample View of the Page Analysis: