The Mailowl Scrolls

I implemented ClustrMaps a little while ago on my blog to get a little more information about who’s checking out my website and I’m pleased to find I really enjoy using it. I had previously used Google Analytics and Feedburner but I wasn’t really getting any information out. ClustrMaps is really simple and easy to subscribe to and install and gives a great physical representation of where people (and bots) are coming from.

This is my ClustrMap at the time of this post

I think site statistics are important, especially if you’re running your own site and are not part of a blogging community space where the popularity of other blogs drives interest and page hits on your personal space. People are coming just to listen just to you and knowing how many there are and where they’re coming from helps motivate and target your posts.

ClustrMaps is free and doesn’t require any participation from your site viewers; simply add a script snippet to your website and the tracking is done for you. Of course this means it’s probably picking up bots and other search engines which are hitting your site where a service like MyGuestmap which requires viewers to participate in locating themselves on the map might be better. However my experience has been that most people are lurkers and passively interact with your site and for small blogs like my own anonymous tracking is more than adequate.

To really get a view of your “success rate” as a blogger or site owner the best would be to use a couple of tracking tools and I still use Feedburner to monitor who’s reading my feed; but if you want to see where your visitors are coming from, give ClustrMaps a try!