Several of you have sent me pictures of your cute little puppies in the harnesses that you have made (thank you! I love seeing them) so I set up a Flickr! group. I realize not everyone uses Flickr! but it’s free and it’s a great way to share photos. If you’re a member, please head on over and join my group and share photos of things you’ve made with my patterns or tutorials!
I’ve also found a few people’s blogs via Google Analytics. Do you use statistics or tracking on your blog? WordPress also has some built in stats that are great! It’s so fun to find out who is linking to you and especially funny to read the search terms. It’s useful too because not only do you know how many hits you get and how people find you, but it tells you which pages or posts are the most popular.
Here’s some nifty screen shots: (By the way, screen shot on the Mac? Command+Shift+4. I had to Google that and now I use it all the time!)
This first shot is from the built in WordPress stats. This is what people searched for when they clicked on my site. I always get boring stuff like “interfacing” and “small dog harness” but then I get funny stuff like “trader joe’s cereal” and “non wooven” Woo! LOL
Google Analytics goes a bit deeper. It tells me what people search for and how long they stay on the site. See how it also tells me how many pages they looked at? The tutorial pages always have a higher time. It’s nice to know what people are reading.
Then you can see who is linking to you. My top referrers are always sites like Pinterest and Sew, Mama, Sew! but you can also find people who have linked to you in their blog posts. I’ve found people who have made the cutest harnesses and ties for their little dogs this way!
Google Analytics has tons of cool information of varying usefulness – visitor loyalty (how many times readers visit, very useful), what browsers and operating systems you all use (useful for compatibility reasons), and where you all come from (very cool!). I have to say that I did not anticipate the international visitors and I just think it is so awesome that you have found me! Hi!
Most blogging platforms have some sort of statistics built in. If you are on something like self-hosted WordPress like me, you can add Google Analytics for free. I highly recommend it!
Erin, I just posted a photo of my dog Copper wearing the cute harness I made based on your tutorial. I linked to your blog as well. I made a few changes since he is a puller when we go “walkies.” Hope you like it! Thanks so much for the tutorial!