Google's Analytics and Afton, Wyoming!

www.google.com

I have been using Blogger to write this stuff since November of 2007.  I stumbled on to Google's Analytics shortly after that and have been tracking visitors to my sites and blog since then.

The analytic tools are a lot of fun and they give you some ideas who the audience may be.  I have been surprised by how many people stop by to see what I have to say.  Thanks for doing that!  The writing teachers have always said to write what you know.  If you couldn't tell, I am basically a music teacher with a strong interest in band and educational technology.  It sounds focused and you would think that would be a limited audience, but I have had close to 11,000 page views in the last two years.

Since then, Blogger has added these tools as a built-in feature.  Or, maybe they were always there and I (once again) have stumbled into useful stuff.  Just look under "Stats" in your Blogger page.

My favorite Analytics tool is the ability to drill down to where the hits are coming from... you can even find out what city or state the people who visit your site are in.  I love watching the map get colored in as people visit from other states.  North Dakota was early (thanks Mom!) and Minnesota is my most often.  The one place that seemed a little elusive was Wyoming.  I realize that there aren't that many people there, but come on!  I have been a more frequent visitor to Wyoming than Wyoming has been to my Blog.  That just hasn't happened until last week.

Now I can say people from all 50 United States have stopped in.  Thanks for stopping by last week Afton, Wyoming!