Monitoring web stats has been one of my key professional duties since 2004. I’ve been compiling monthly and year-over-year data for every site I manage. The most visited pages, top search terms, and best referral sources are important metrics, along with visits, unique visitors, and pageviews.
This information is helpful for making copy and design decisions. For instance, if one of the primary tabs in our navigation is rarely clicked, changing the label might be wise. It may not be clear to visitors what they will find on the other side of that link.
I’ve been collecting and reacting to data in my web development since the very beginning. And while I am generally opposed to data-driven strategies for marketing, that is “we make decisions based on the data.” I do advocate for a data-informed approach, or “analytics are one piece of a much broader decision making puzzle.”
I still believe analytics are helpful, but chose not to collect them for this site. That means I have no visitor data for this domain. There is no javascript installed anywhere on the site that tracks user activity.
I don’t know how many people visited my last commentary. I don’t know which image is the most popular. I don’t know if my subscription buttons are getting clicks. I have no information.
This was a deliberate, but somewhat uncomfortable decision. And I made it based on my conviction about the site’s purpose.
My conviction is that writing is good for me, even if no one else reads it. Writing is even better when it’s public, because I’m accountable for my words. And writers that publish are held to a minimal standard of quality.
It is also my conviction that photography is good for me. It helps me sharpen my observational skills, exercise my creativity, document my exploration, and work on self-discipline. I can do all of this without an audience.
Daily monitoring pageviews may take my eye off the ball. Instead of personal development, this may become an exercise in audience growth. And while I appreciate readers, viewers, and podcast subscribers, I want to continue even if there are only a few.
I’m keeping track of other numbers for this project. How many words have I written? How many total articles? How many macro images have I posted? How many landscapes? How many villages have I featured?
My goal is growth as a writer and photographer. I can only grow by putting in the work. That means repetition – doing a lot of everything over and over. I’ll be keeping a close eye on those stats!