There are a plethora of WordPress Plugins and addons for tracking statistics. This is great because you then get your pick of the litter, but the problem is if you install three different tracking plugins you will get three different results. So what should you do with these choices and discrepancies in results?
Not to worry, I have a few answers to calm your worries. I do not have a definitive answer as to what is THE best stats plugin, but that’s mostly because ‘best’ is very relative in this situation. Though, lets start with probably the best known system: Google Analytics.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics has more or less anything you’d need. It has stats by hour, day, month and year. Keyword tracking, ‘segments’ (for tracking different time periods and improvements in those times), and a heck of a lot more.
The 7 x’s are your account number, and the Y is the number of the website attached to your account. So your first website will be -1, your second one added will be -2 and so on. You can find it these numbers at: https://www.google.com/analytics/settings/home
If you’re website isn’t added, all you have to do is create a website “Profile” as Google calls it. There is a button on that home page on the bottom left. It’ll look something like the image on the right.
So which out of the plugins should you pick?
For the easiest choice, pick (what I did) and use: Google Analytics For WordPress. It’s ‘basic’ configuration is very simple. In the image below, you can see both the simple settings, the top potion, and the more advanced settings on the bottom. It’s extremely customizable with click tracking. So I find that very useful. It’s the one I recommend everyone to use.
Here are two great plugins which can help you get a better picture of your site’s visitors. I recommend installing both:
- WordPress.com Stats
- StatPress
WordPress.com Stats
This is one of the simplest looking plugins you’ll ever get. It connects to your WordPress.com account. This, like the Google Analytics, is all off-site. If you don’t want to deal with Google, this plugin will give you the best overall picture day to day. It’s not as accurate as I’d like it to be. For whatever reason it misses somethings here and there. But it’s pretty good overall and I check it regularly for referrals, keywords and clicks.
StatPress
This plugin is … something different. It gives you such accurate results it’s scary. But, there is a huge problem with this plugin. It’s onsite, which I love, but it’s so un-Godly slow. The website works the same, but loading the statistics view is SO slow I can make myself a cup of tea and it’ll still be loading sometimes. Then again that can be attributed to my slow server …..
It tracks significantly more than WordPress.com Stats does and not as much as Google’s. But it’s more accurate than either.
It’s the best for getting a quick overview of the recent visitors and it’s fun to ‘spy’ on current visitors. The screenshot above is of the landing page. There are other views including an ‘overview’ screen, spy screeen, details …. it really has a lot and it’s fun to check out exactly what users are looking at my site! I highly recommend this one.
Those are the 3 plugins I primarily use. I use all three to get the best picture and just one isn’t good enough. Each has it’s pluses and minuses.
Recently I started using two new services/plugins: So I haven’t really tested either yet, but both seem promising:
- WassUP with VStats (these are two plugins. Wassup is the plugin and service. Vstats is an addon plugin)
- QuantCast
If you liked this article then let me know!
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