Parenting Blog Analytics: How Do My Stats Compare?
Monday, June 18, 2012 
In the blogging world, people often talk about and wonder about numbers. New bloggers, in particular, are often curious how they stand up to more established bloggers. Because I'm a numbers geek and incredibly curious, I decided to dive in and try to answer the questions that everyone is asking themselves. How much traffic are these blogs really getting? Where is that traffic coming from? What works and what doesn't work in terms of growing a blog.
I put out a call for volunteers and selected 20 different blogs, ranging from big to small, single author to multi-author, frequent to infrequent posts, covering a wide variety of topics and techniques.
This presentation, called Looking Under the Hood of Parenting Blogs, provides a summary of the results. I hope you find it useful (if the font is too small, click the "view full screen" icon in the bottom right of the frame).
Any questions? Feel free to ask in the comments.
Reader Comments (74)
Thanks so much for including me.
And I guess it's time to bite the bullet and set up that Facebook page. ;)
Holy Cow, Annie!!! This is the kind of thing people pay big $ to see presented at marketing conferences. Excuse me while I go study it.. ;-)
Awesome job
I'd noticed a link to comments or add a comment on some blogs but not all from within Google Reader, but never really paid attention. Looking more closely, it seems like it might be a Wordpress feature? It isn't actually part of the Google Reader interface as I only get the same options as you mention above, but seems instead to be part of the actual post.
Really interesting! I've always thought that I must have one of the smallest mommy blogs in the world, and now I know I do. I was really through the tips to increase traffic, and it dawned on me that ultimately I do not care. I started blogging as a way to research topics on child development, which I knew would be boring to some (most, apparently....), because I was very interested and it gave me a way to "continue my education" while being a SAHM. I've enjoyed it, and while it's awesome to have some "popular" posts, its most enjoyable to learn new things about my LO. Thanks for the research!
Thank you for sharing information on something every blogger wants to know (but is too afraid to ask). Can't imagine how much time it took for you to do the analysis and slides...but really well done!
I'm moving more towards "lists and DIY" myself because its just easier to write when you have a baby on your lap. Nice to know my "easy" is also a good blogging trend.
Thanks for the analysis work! I'm curious if longer posts or shorter posts had the most traffic, over time. The longer post seems like it might work best for Search engine traffic, but shorter (list-type) posts might attract more initial "clicks" and "Shares".
And whether multiple photos (which can become expensive) seem to be a variable in top posts?
Pat
This information is very helpful. I started my blog in January of this year and it has really been a learning process. I still have so much to learn and try to read a little about blogging everyday. Your information was well thought out and one of the better articles to give me an understanding of what I need to do with my blog. Thank you.
Thanks so much for including me in your analysis Annie. The results are really helpful!!
I'm going to use these results to work towards making my blog even better for my readers and looking forward to more discussions about parenting blogs and numbers as time goes on.
Thanks again!!
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Hi Annie! I'm a reader and follower from the Philippines and even if I'm 20,000 miles away, this stat summary is very useful and insightful. Thanks for doing this and sharing.
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Thank you so much for this post!
I've been blogging for a while (3.5 years?) and am still trying to figure out what I *really* want to do with my blog and why. At long last, things seem to be coming together — in my head, at least. This post helps a great deal. I'm hoping to get more ideas and inspiration at BlogHer, too! Thanks again!
Parents, try the caught being good app which uses positive reinforcement to reward your children's great behavior!
"Better to write for the love of writing and blogging than narcissism and hit counting." So astute. I need to write that down on a post-it and stick it on my monitor. Because yes, I do get swept up into the "this should get the counter rolling" madness. And I suspect I'm not the only one.
Fabulous comment to a fabulous post.
Thanks for a wonderful presentation and breakdown of statistics and referral sources. As a new blogger, I often wondered about numbers, and you answered many of my questions. Thanks again.
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Great information, thank you for taking the time to do this and sharing!
Although I'm not a big numbers person (too baffling, heh), I do appreciate the key takeaways.
How did you find all those stats to compare? Some of them are not on google analytics (or I am clueless on how to use that service).
All of the stats were either available on Google Analytics or were publicly available (e.g. number of twitter followers, number of facebook page likes). Some of the numbers were calculations that I did using more than one data point.
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