Counting and Analysing traffic using stat counters

In order to find out who is visiting your website you need a stat counter ( also called hit counter ). This article expands on the following concepts:
-What is a stat counter;
-What type of data do they track;
-What are the best stat counter.

Stat counters are programs that record certain activity of visitors to your site. In the simplest form, they tell you how many people visited your site (unique visitors), and how many different pages were loaded (hits). Stat counters can hold data such as:
- entry page (where the person found your site from);
- exit page (what page the exited your site from);
- popular pages (what pages get the most hits);
- keyword activity (what search engine keywords were typed to find your site)
and many more, depending on which stat counter you use.

Since this site is aimed towards blogger users, the number of stat counters available is limited more than if you were hosting a site on your own. However, there are two very good stat counters that are commonly used by blogger bloggers. They are:
StatCounter ;
Site Meter.
I use StatCounter and its more than sufficient, however a lot of people use both. They are very simple to install. Each site will give you a piece of code to install, and with the new Blogger Beta, is a matter of following these steps:

1. Log in to your Blogger account.
2. On the first "New Post" click "Layout".
3. Click "Add a Page Element".
4. Choose the "HTML/JavaScript" then click, "Add To Blog".
5. Paste the StatCounter code into the space provided. (ctrl v)
6. Click "Save Changes".

Done. Now wait for people to come and you can begin to see what they did when they were at your site.