[This is part of the Blogger's Guide to Earning More with Google Adsense.]
One of the natural things to note while we’re talking about traffic, monetization, and especially web metrics is that obsessing over it and constantly checking your Adsense account and metrics will really get you nowhere.
In fact, it might be one of the more unhealthy things you could be doing with your time – there are certainly more important things to be doing with your life (like spending time optimizing!).
But let me be clear that there’s a rational and reasonable justification of why checking daily (or more than once a day) is pretty much fruitless:
- Hourly (daily) changes have no long term statistical meaning and relatively low-to-no significance.
- Checking that often is just a waste of time. Period. You have better things to do.
What you’re better off doing is establishing a rhythm and schedule of checking and sticking to it. For example, in my BlogX program I’m coaching people to check daily but for less than 5 minutes and at the beginning of their work. And that’s it! Just once to jot down some statistical information.
What we do then is once a month take a look back and begin to formulate significance. This of course begs the question about frequency…
What is the Right Frequency for Checking Statistics?
The quick answer is that there is none. There is no one right amount of checking a day, a week, or a month that’s “optimal.” Rather, the most important thing is that it’s both calculated and systematic.
What does that mean? It means that you determine a period of time that works for the goals and the elements that you’re measuring and check during that time. It actually behooves you to stick to that schedule and you can learn a thing or two about self-control!
I think checking once a month is too long and I think checking more than once a day is ridiculous. For my activity for BlogX participants I’m asking them to check once daily (to get them in a rhythm of establishing a method and practice) but I personally check my analytics once a week.
Why? I simply have discovered that nothing short of a week is going to give me enough practically to make significant changes to my blog that are warranted. You can’t believe how much time this saves me and how it reduces my stress!
Pick the right frequency that works for you and then stick with it.
[This is part of the Blogger's Guide to Earning More with Google Adsense. Image via FreakyFrames.]
You are damn right!In the beginning I used to check them almost hourly or even more often, but this is a waste of time, for sure.
Now i check the earning before i start to work and the traffic when the day is over.
awesome! good for you!
I can relate very well to being OCD about checking again and again. It got to where I would wake up in the middle of the night to do it or excuse myself when I had guests over at the house. Now I have disciplined myself more and only check once in the morning and once before bed and actually focus on optimizing and fine-tuning what I need to improvise for better results the rest of the time instead. Also, by leaving a longer gap between each time I check the stats, I am pretty much guaranteed to see fresh results every time.
-Jean
yikes!
i was never this “bad” but i’m not one to judge!
i do it for my emotional stability more than anything..!
My father used to tell me about an economist and manager named Dr. Deming. He helped Japan make their economic revolution. One of the things he talked about was not changing too drastically. There’s going to be natural variation in things like adsense results. If you make changes daily, you’ll end up confusing that natural variation with the changes that you’ve made. The end result is that often you do more harm than good – and you’ll certainly waste time by spinning your wheels.
wow, i love this example… i think it works!