How many readers?

[imported_Lightening]

I'm just wondering what kind of readership level is a reasonable goal for me to have?

Like what is a "normal" or "average" number of visitors per day for a personal blog?

What about the more popular Australian blogs? How many visitors per day do they get?

And how do I work it out? I have statcounter on my blog but that doesn't count those who read in a reader but never visit does it?

What kind of number of visitors do the rest of you get and how long has it taken to build that up?

My first goal (after getting ANY visitors at all that is) was to consistently reach 100 hits per day which I *think* I have reached. I guess my next goal will be 200 but at the same time I'm wondering if there is a reasonable limit (eg 500, 1000 etc) or do the number of hits just keep rising over time?

[katef]

Oh I'd like to know too!

Like you my goal was 100 hits a day which I get most of the time... on days I offer digi scrap freebies I get loads more and the day I finally named my son I hit about 300 ROFL.... but yeah I'm wondering what is a good amount to aim for, what makes having an ad or two worth it?

[Riayn]

Wow, you two have a much higher readership than I do. I was estatic the day my stats hit 35 page views.

Lightening, for determining who is reading your blog through a reader, go to Feedburner and put your feed through them. They will then tell you how many people downloaded your feed that day. They even have a little widget to go on your blog.

[Megan]

According to Yaro Starik, the average blog NEVER reaches 500 hits per day. I bounce between 350 and 450 per day, except on Sunday and Monday where I can go down to 200 hits (that's because our Monday is the USA's Sunday I guess).

I am currently working toward a goal of 1500 hits per day...but my blog is a service blog and is my professional reach.

Reach - that is the word to describe how many people read your whole post via your feed. Riayn is right with the feedburner suggestion. Feedburner (http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/home)will allow people to either subscribe to your blog by email delivery or by a feed reader (feedburner will give you some code to enter on your blog to make it easy for people to subscribe). Most Aussies use email because we haven't yet cottoned onto how marvelous and quick reading through a feed is.

One tip I learnt about subscribers via my feed is that the title and first 25 words that show to them on their reader have to make the reader want to click the article to read the rest. Once they click, feedburner tells you what your reach is for that day - you have 7 feed readers with a reach of 3 (seven people have subscribed to your blog by a feed and 3 of them clicked on your posts for a further look). The whole goal is to get people to read your posts so reach is important.

My number one tip for keeping readers is to form relationships with them. In a shop we like good customer service. When visiting a blog we need the same, good customer service via response to our comments, friendly and helpful bloggers and balanced view points.

Hope this is helpful.

[Leigh]

The main number you want to be looking at is unique visitors. This will count each unique visitor to your site each day.
Pageviews tells you how many complete pages were loaded.
Hit is a count of how many times your server is "hit" for informations. So for every script and image on you page, 1 hit is recorded. You could have 20-30 or more hits her page load, so hits are really inaccurate.

A number that might be right for one blog or niche, may not be the same for another. I guess you main aim should be to just try and improve on last month.

[imported_Lightening]

Thanks Megan - if an average blog never reaches 500 hits in a day then that sounds like a good figure for me to aim for. LOL. Not that I'm worried how long it takes me to achieve that.

I can't find where on my feedburner page it says about my reach.

Leigh - I think that's a good idea, aiming to improve each month. That is what I've been doing so far. Do most blogs continue to slowly grow or do you think there is something of a saturation point for most blogs???

My statcounter gives me unique visits as well as number of page loads.

Riayn - don't worry about your readership numbers. I too remember celebrating reaching about 30 views per day. There are quite a few articles out there for increasing readership if it's what you want to do. But it does take quite a bit of time investment (well, it has for me anyway).

Katef - interesting that you have some articles that boost your stats.

[katef]

I am guessing that if you give something away free on your blog, whatever that is, you get lots of hits? It is definitely like that in the digo scrap world... if you post a link to a free scrapping kit on your blog you don't even have to advertise, you get picked up by other blogs who do nothing but list freebies and you get heaps of people coming just to grab the freebie and run... so I don't think that really counts as 'readers' LOL

Also it took us 7 weeks to name our son... and as you can imagine everyone we know was stalking my blog to find out if their suggestion was the one we chose....so I got a LOT of hits in the final few days and the day I finally announced his name LOL

But yeah it is very interesting to see what articles you write get the most hits. I also find it interesting to see which search terms people find your blog with.. not that I get many hits like that but the few that I have had have made me think about a new direction for my blog that might increase my traffic some.

I feel like a giant nerd but I find this all fascinating!

Mind you I finally signed up for feedburner last night but I have 0, yes ZERO, subscribers.... I am so so so sad!

Kate

[Miscmum]

Ah - traffic. Angsty subject.

Whenever I've been on Problogger. Wow. I wish I had that every day ;)

[tianakaesha]

I would love to get more readership. I don't have much at all though!

[DeborahR]

As Leigh pointed out it is the number of unique site visitors that really matters these days. There is large discrepancy between hits and unique visitors. For example, I've had over 37,000 hits so far this month but less than 3,000 unique site visitors.

In regards to Problogger, that guy has built up his traffic over many years and not only would I like his stats I'd like his bank account! He makes a fortune from his blog from advertising and he posts every day. He even organises guest bloggers to post on Problogger when he is on holidays spending his tens of thousands of dollars! I really hate that guy :D

Hit counters are not very reliable. If you have your own domain your web host should provide you with accurate stats in the control panel of your web hosting account. If you have a Wordpress blog there is a plugin for keeping track of your blog stats.

You can also try Google Analytics which is available from the Webmasters Tools in your google account. You just post the code into the template of your blog and when you want to check your stats you login to your webmasters tools account.

Back to your original question. In regards to what is a reasonable amount of site traffic to aim for that will depend on what you want to achieve. I don't set targets. As long as the site traffic keeps increasing every month I'm happy.

[karooch]

Oh I'd like to know too!

Like you my goal was 100 hits a day which I get most of the time... on days I offer digi scrap freebies I get loads more and the day I finally named my son I hit about 300 ROFL.... but yeah I'm wondering what is a good amount to aim for, what makes having an ad or two worth it?

Hey Kate, I do a Five Freebies on Friday round up On Scraps of Mind (http://www.scrapsofmind.com). Give me the links to your freebies and I'll include them in next week's.

[katef]

oh Karen I'll keep you in mind if my PC ever behaves enough for me to design ever again! LOL

Kate