As we left it last time, the next step is to attract visitors to your blog. But how do you know who has visited your blog? Most web hosting companies offer some basic web statistic tools or log files. These are usually pretty lame. If you use a blogging service, such as Blogger, you might not have access to log files at all. Regardless, the best web statistic tool I have seen by far is Google Analytics. The stats are clean and obvious. They show you the number of unique visitors, where they came from, how long the stayed on your site, and how they got there. They even have a neat map that shows you all the places in the world users came from. You can also perform some advanced tracking of specific goals. Setting up Google Analytics is as simple as adding a small script element to your blog's header. Many blog engines even allow you to do this from the settings page instead of having to modify the template code. Definitely check it out, it is well worth it.

Once you get Google Analytics setup, don't get frustrated. It take up to 24 hours to see some real stats. The stats are then updated roughly once a day.

I was so excited to check out my first report of user statistics. I logged and and saw some neat charts, graphs, and maps. Then I realized I only received 3 unique visitors. The most active visitor was from my own town. Yup, it was me. The other two visitors were blog syndication services that denied my blog because it was too new. D'oh! Not a single legitimate reader has read my blog yet. It sure is lonely in the beginning. Its important to stick with it though. Once we get more content, we can start taking advantage of blog services like BlogRush and BlogFlux. I'll talk more about them in posts to come. In the meantime, cheer up. Things will get better!