Website monitoring is an important thing once we start running our own blog / website. It shows how many visitors who have visited our website along with much information about them, such as referrals, search engine keywords, country, etc.
Please do not get it wrong, I will suggest a good free monitoring service which delivers genuine value for you, but this is not an advertisement. None asked me to write this article and I do it because of my own will. I use this free service and it is great, that is why I share you all of this so you can get some benefit from it too, in case you want or need to. I simply write this to help others, I do not ask for anything in return.
About three weeks ago, I saw
Site Meter ’s small icon in someone’s website, then I clicked it as my curiosity told me. I recognized that it was a monitoring service provider. I signed up for free, just to try it and I did not plan to use it seriously. Because I still used
Google Analytics and I think that was enough for me. I loved its maps.
A week later, I got a problem with my Google Analytics account. It stopped receiving new visitors’ data, as if none came to my site. That was impossible, since I visited the site myself to check my editing on its appearance, working or not. I guessed there was something wrong in the script, so I tried to get the original codes from Google Analytics again, hoping to reinstall it.
However, I could not find anywhere on the website how to get a new code. I was tired and frustrated, since monitoring my site’s visitors daily was much fun for me.
Then I went back to Site Meter, and decided to use it as my primary monitoring service. After using it for some period, I know that their free service is great and delivering genuine value. Here is why:
It is free Why you want to pay for a monitoring service if you can get one for free? Site Meter possess incredible value (benefit per cost), since they are free! You cannot possibly expect for something cheaper then this. I never pay any single penny to use their free service.
Their records are updated real time When I use Google Analytics, I noticed that their visitor data was updated once a day. However, Site Meter updated their data real-time. This is highly satisfying for me, as I’m online almost every time, and checking my visitors records is my real fun. In a day, I usually check my visitors six times, each in different hours.
They can ignore your own visits This unique feature is very useful for me since I often visit my own site whenever I edit something, just to make sure the editing works. What I expect to see in my traffic report are purely the records of other people who have come visiting my site, not me my self. In addition, Site Meter provides it well in their service.
This works by their sending a permanent cookie to my browser, so whenever I visit my own site, Site Meter will recognize me, and ignore my visit to be recorded as well.
Their customer support responds fast I use only their free service, and I wanted to know how and how fast their customer support responds to help request. Therefore, I sent them a message, which type is general question. Surprisingly, they responded very kindly and FAST! I counted the time, and from the time I sent my message, it was about only an hour before they sent me a response.
That was great; since I only used free service and my message’s priority was only normal (all general questions priority is normal). If the message is about something very important (high priority), I am sure they will respond even faster.
They can make your traffic records private or show it off They have this feature where you can choose to show your traffic records to public, or not. For me, as I just newly started this website, I choose to show my traffic records to none but me myself. If my traffic has gone pretty high, may be I would like to show it off a little bit :D
They provide plenty of features even on the free service At the first time, so many features they have in their sidebar confused me. As I had tried some of them now, I’ve found my favorite features, which is “Summary”, “This weeks visit and page views” and “Recent visitor by location”. Those three are the most common features I use recently, they are enough for me to monitor my visitors.
Here arethe complete monitoring features of their great free service:
General:Summary Who’s on? Traffic Prediction Recent visitors:
By Details By Referrals By Search Words By World Map By Location By Out Clicks By Entry Pages By Exit Pages Visits:
Current Day Previous 7 Days Previous 30 Days Previous 12 Months Visits and page views:
Current Day Previous 7 Days Previous 30 Days Previous 12 Months Page ranking:
Support + service:
Knowledge Center Submit Support Request But it's not all of them , they still have this:
Navigational trends:Today's Visit Depth Daily Visit Depth Daily Durations Continent Country Distance Time Zone Language OS Domain Organization Browsers Share Java Script Monitor Resolution Color Depth They have paid features that are more advanced For me the free service is much more than enough to monitor my site from many aspects. However, when I told them that I would write this article, they kindly showed their advanced features / services. In case you are an advanced monitoring service user, you can make use of these:
Moving average: Visits:Page Views:Referral Rangking Web pages ranked byVisits Page Views Visit Length Web sites ranked by
Visits Page Views Visit Length Search engines ranked by
Visits Page Views Visit Length Search words ranked by
Visits (+SE) Page Views (+SE) Visit Length (+SE) I myself do not understand well each of those features, since I only use basic functions of monitoring, which I have mentioned earlier as my favorites features. If you’re interested in the details of each feature, Site Meter explained it clearly on their
Basic Vs Premium Account information.
Site meter can provide their free service since the advertising shown on each of their pages supports them. You are helping to support Site Meter every time you see an advertisement, click on a banner or sign up with a service advertised on Site Meter. Everybody puts ads on their website, don't you?
If you put their tracking script in your website, while you use their free service, they will show a small box written Site Meter which is a link to their homepage or your records, depending on your setting to make your records private or not.
However, do not let them stop you from using it. As a free monitoring service, Site Meter gives people really-really free services without tricks, hidden cost, cloaked trial, or else. It means they provide genuine value for others, so they deserve mutual value. Still, what they give is definitely much more than what they cost, which is free. I never pay any single penny to use their free service up to now.
As I said earlier, this is not an advertisement. None asked me to write this but myself, as what I’ve said in my welcome note, “Hi, I'm Isaac Yassar and I help people reaching success in self development, business, and blogging for free”. So, I do not ask for anything in return for this. I just inform people about something that can be very useful for them.
In sum, all I want to express is that I receive genuine value from
Site Meter for free and I want you to know that you can receive the same value too, just in case you want or need it. Good day.
