So you want to grow your blog’s traffic. Everyone does. The more people read your work, the more worthwhile it will be for you.

This site is dedicated to all kinds of tips to help you bump up your traffic here and there, how to improve your blog over the long haul, and how to keep visitors coming back. But the single most important thing you can do right now to start improving your traffic is to start understanding your visitors better.

A good statistical tracker will help you answer the following questions:

• How many visitors come to my blog?
• Which content is most likely to attract them?
• Where are they coming from?
• What keywords did they search for to find your blog?
• What times of day are most common for visits?
• How many pages does each visitor view before leaving?

So which statistical tracking products should you use? Here are four to choose from:

1. Google Analytics: It is by far the best statistical tracker for analyzing aggregate data over the long term. While its statistics are not up to date minute-by-minute, it is immensely useful for noticing and capitalizing on trends in your site’s traffic.
2. StatCounter: Statistics are up to date, and it provides a useful way to track the most popular referring URLs. Its main advantage is that like Google Analytics — but unlike most other free stat trackers — it can remain invisible on your pages. But the free version will only track the details of your past 100 visitors, which means that you cannot rely on it for any long-term details.
3. OneStat (free version): OneStat’s free counter requires its logo to display somewhere on your pages (the very bottom of your footer is fine, of course). It does tend to be speedier and a bit more reliable than other free stat trackers, though, and it brings the added advantage of a bit of extra traffic coming from their “charts,” which essentially serve as a directory of sites that use their counter, separated by category. I’m not sure that the traffic their charts provide is significant, though.
4. SIte Meter: Some controversy has erupted over whether Site Meter was installing spyware on users’ computers from pages using their stat tracker. And they only track your most recent 100 visitors. But their stats are generally up to date, and they remain a staple on many, many blogs.