The reach of Blogs

I was checking through the stats on my google analytics report, (google analytics is really good stuff by the way) and as I looked down through the looong list of reports available I decided to give the old "Geo location" chart a check. It really does give you an idea of the global reach that a blog gives you, I can see from the chart for instance that an impressive 0.51% come from spain, a country which has....bad relations with me....obviously they are spying on me.

Lessons to be learned?

1. Blogs spread ur ideas across the world (although chances are they dont care)
2. Google analytics is great for anyone who wants detailed info on their site/blog
3. Don't go to spain

Knock, Knock, Whos there?

I love writing blogs, and I think it really is a great way of getting things out of your head and on to some sort storage before they just fade away into space, never to reappear.
I also love the way that you can spread ideas about whatever, to whoever, at any time of the day. But blogging poses my brain several problems, and I think they are probably common to many writers throughout the entire blogosphere

1. Is anyone reading this? Who? and how many?
2. How do I let people know I have great stuff to say?

The first question has been solved for me by www.sitemeter.com, this site gives you a piece of html you add to your blog, from the time you put this on your page it will show you so many details it will make you cry: the daily hits, visits, average time stayed, where they came from (google, link etc), and how they left. Picture shows how people got to my site
The second site that can show you great detail is Google Analytics. Here, you can get some pretty nifty graphs and tables of where your visitors are coming from like this one
and what the most frequently accesed content on your site is.

Until recently the material on this blog was known to only a select few and had limited exposure, but then I discovered the site "Digg", here you can post your latest story to the site and in a chosen category. Once posted here, you have huge exposure to an audience of like minded bloggers who are looking for material to read. Over the last few days my average hit count has gone from 23 to 75.

So if you want to see if people are reading, and attract more readers have a look at these sites and give them a try.