Just Jackie

When I was a kid, my best friend’s name was Emily. Every time I went to Emily’s house, I always noticed this one wall that had a bunch of horizontal lines on it. One day, I asked Emily, “Why are all these lines here?” Emily responded, “Every couple of months, my mom likes to measure how tall I am, so I stand up here and she measures me with a pencil.” “Oh, I see…” not thinking much of it (I just thought it was cool her parents wrote on the wall).

At six, this information didn’t mean anything to me. But at 22—it’s crystal clear. Measurement is measurement regardless of what you are measuring. Whether it’s human height or Web traffic, measurement is about capturing data and tracking progress.

In her book, Measuring Public Relationships (2007), Katie Paine says, “Public relations measurement is a circular, reiterative process in which information is acquired and then changes are made based on that information, and then more information is acquired and more changes are made, and so on again and again” (p. 2). Granted, this is a very broad description, but honestly it’s measurement in a nutshell. People cannot improve what they cannot measure, so measurement is absolutely necessary to see how your efforts are holding up to reach your objectives.

With measurement in mind, I decided to check out the WordPress statistics of this blog to see what was provided to me and how I was doing ‘numbers wise’. To my surprise, listed right there before my very eyes was my ‘total views’, ‘busiest day’, ‘average views per day’, ‘referrers’ (where people clicked links from to get to my blog, ‘most popular posts’ and much more. To someone who has been blogging for a long time, my numbers would be unimpressive. But to me, I’m happy that strangers and friends are willing to even look at my blog to begin with. And the fact that people click-through to my blog from different sites is very…very cool.

I wouldn’t have known any of this without my WordPress measurement data. If some posts aren’t being read, I will have an idea of what content should leave. On the other hand, data and comments give me insight on what content should stay.  Not including my mother (yeah…I know), some comments I’ve received have been so thoughtful and encouraging that I’m even more determined to write valuable posts to intrigue my visitors.

Just like the horizontal lines on the wall helped Emily’s mom track her height progress, my WordPress stats give me the data I need to track my own blog evolution. Regardless of where you stand (literally and figuratively), it’s important to keep tabs on growth and development to track performance and decide a future plan of action.