Meaningful stats

Tara has some good points in her post "It's all a farce, anyway...", but considering the amount of time I've spent tracking web analytics for the Global Culture blog, I have to point out that the simple volume-driven stats that most bloggers care about are definitely an illusion. However there are other metrics that may provide a better picture of what is happening:

• The ratio between short-lived visits (<10 sec) and the rest. Many people may arrive to your blog every day because of some weird alignment of stars, but only those that stay and read matter. Typically I get 30% readers vs. blog surfers


• A healthy balance between new readers (my marketing efforts are working) and returning visitors (content is still relevant). Even as my audience grows, I maintain a 25% ratio.


• I pay close attention to the ratio of new visitors finding my site through various keywords, because that gives me a hint on what they need. Also measuring the various keywords against the average pageviews per visit they generate tells me a lot about the quality of audience that is reaching the blog from the various sources.


• In my case a very diverse audience (geographically) tells me that my content is truly relevant globally, which is one of the objectives of the blog

I'm getting all these from Google Analytics for free, and while ultimately they may not tell me the full story, I know I'm on the right track. Of course I have no ambition of making money with this blog, which may be the reason why I don't care about volume, but quality of visitors.