Most analytics programs, including the free-if-you-can-get-an-account Google Analytics, will show you not only the most popular entry points and how your visitors got there (for example, x number of visitors got to your homepage from a link in the Yahoo Directory), but also your top exit points (what the last page they viewed on your site was before clicking away), but many analytics programs don't make it easy to figure out which of your blog's links sent your visitor off your site. Clearly this is important to know if you're trying to figure out what topics are interesting or valuable to your readers, and which elicit more yawns than clicks.
One of the blogs I read regularly has a feature I really like: when you mouse over any outgoing link (i.e., a link to another domain), it displays how popular that link is relative to others on that page. If you hover over the pop-up, it also gives you link to another page which tells you how many people clicked on the tracked link.
Here's a screenshot of what it would look like on your site:
This feature is powered by
MyBlogLog via some simple JavaScript code snippet you can drop into your blog's template. It doesn't use any kooky redirects either, so your links will keep passing PageRank (if you're into that sort of thing).
If you follow the MyBlogLog links, you see the number of clicks a given link received:
I don't know anything about this company, and they don't have the slickest looking site, but I like them* based solely on
item #5 in their FAQs:
What is the meaning of life?
What we've come up with can be reduced to two fundamental concepts. One, people are not wearing enough hats. Two, Matter is energy. In the universe, there are many energy fields, which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source, which act upon a person's soul. However, this soul does not exist automatically, as orthodox Christianity teaches, but has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved due to mankind's unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia.
* Like them in a I'm-giving-them-props-on-my-site-for-being-funny kinda "like them." Not necessarily a I'm-going-to-become-a major-investor like them.
Posted by Melanie Phung
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Displaying Outgoing Link Popularity
Most analytics programs, including the free-if-you-can-get-an-account Google Analytics, will show you not only the most popular entry points and how your visitors got there (for example, x number of visitors got to your homepage from a link in the Yahoo Directory), but also your top exit points (what the last page they viewed on your site was before clicking away), but many analytics programs don't make it easy to figure out which of your blog's links sent your visitor off your site. Clearly this is important to know if you're trying to figure out what topics are interesting or valuable to your readers, and which elicit more yawns than clicks.
One of the blogs I read regularly has a feature I really like: when you mouse over any outgoing link (i.e., a link to another domain), it displays how popular that link is relative to others on that page. If you hover over the pop-up, it also gives you link to another page which tells you how many people clicked on the tracked link.
Here's a screenshot of what it would look like on your site:
This feature is powered by MyBlogLog via some simple JavaScript code snippet you can drop into your blog's template. It doesn't use any kooky redirects either, so your links will keep passing PageRank (if you're into that sort of thing).If you follow the MyBlogLog links, you see the number of clicks a given link received:
I don't know anything about this company, and they don't have the slickest looking site, but I like them* based solely on item #5 in their FAQs:
* Like them in a I'm-giving-them-props-on-my-site-for-being-funny kinda "like them." Not necessarily a I'm-going-to-become-a major-investor like them.
Posted by Melanie Phung