I made the switch from Blogger to self-hosted WordPress on February 22, 2015, and to be honest, I had no clue what to expect from WordPress in terms of helping my blog grow. I knew it was a more SEO friendly platform, and I purchased the Genesis Framework to boost that even more, so I figured my views would increase at least a bit. But then, after a month of using my new self-hosted blog, my views had doubled. And now, less than a month later, they’ve tripled. And I haven’t noticed any evidence of that trend stopping.
“Views” may not be the right term to use here. I’m actually referring to “sessions”, which is the term Google Analytics defines as
…a group of interactions that take place on your website within a given time frame. For example a single session can contain multiple screen or page views, events, social interactions, and ecommerce transactions.
The other two statistics I’m considering are “users” and “pageviews”, but I’ll get more into those in a Google Analytics 101 post! To make this comparison a little easier, let me give you some backstory on my statistics before I made the switch to WordPress.
Before Switching To WordPress
For the sake of simplicity, I’m comparing the period of time that I’ve been on WordPress (February 22 – April 4) to the period directly before that (January 11 – February 21).
As you can see, my session counts were all over the place. There was an increasing trend, but I’m chalking that up to the fact that I was posting a bit more during this period in an attempt to hype up my switch. My sessions in periods before this were all about the same, with no noticeable increasing trend. Here are a few notable numbers –
Average number of sessions per day: 70 sessions
Minimum sessions for a day: 23
Maximum sessions for a day: 125 (the day before my launch)
Basically, my stats were pretty dang low. I had the occasional spike on days that I posted, but even those weren’t too high. And based on my earlier assumption, had I not been posting more often and hyping up my blog’s switch, they would’ve been a lot lower. You could say I was pretty happy when those numbers skyrocketed after my switch.
After Switching To WordPress
So I’m not quite famous yet (ha), but those numbers still excite me. For the first few weeks of being on WordPress, my sessions averaged out at about 200 a day, which was still above every session count from the previous period. Then, almost exactly a month later, those numbers started increasing, even though I was posting the same amount each week. Here are some extra statistics –
Average number of sessions per day: 370
Minimum sessions for a day: 160
Maximum sessions for a day: 715
Overall, the number of sessions from the previous period increased by a whopping 430%. There are a lot of factors that go into these statistics, so it’s hard to tell what exactly caused this increase. Could social media platforms be sending more readers to my blog? Could my content just be more relevant than before? Basically, I can’t say with 100% confidence that switching to WordPress was the main cause for this increase. I have noticed a big increase in the number of sessions referred by a search engine though, which is a good sign.
Overall Comparison
Gosh do I love Google Analytics.
The numbers are pretty easy to interpret. They’re real, and they’re right there. But there are a few other points this comparison left me with:
Keeping track of your statistics is extremely important if your goal is to grow your blog
It’s hard to start looking at your blog’s growth when you don’t have any history to look at, and that made it hard for me to judge whether switching to WordPress was really what caused my increased views. Had I kept track of exactly how often I was posting before and after, and how my social media followers grew, it would’ve been easier to narrow down the influences.
Watching your statistics can help your blog grow
I’ve been doing some experimenting with post times recently, and it’s interesting to see how the time I publish a post increases the number of views that post gets. I always thought there wouldn’t be enough of a difference, but I was definitely wrong. Now, every time I make a post, I try to publish it at a time I haven’t before, and take note of the number of views that post gets and when it receives the most. I’m hoping this will eventually help me find a “perfect time” for posting and continue to increase my views.
Never trust Blogger statistics
Seriously. Just don’t. I knew this was a bad idea after hearing these words of advice from many other bloggers, but when I finally checked out my Google Analytics statistics, I was still disappointed to see that my actual number of views was almost a quarter of what Blogger had been telling me. So if you haven’t yet, go install Google Analytics on your blog. It’s totally worth it.
If you’ve switched from Blogger to WordPress, did you notice an increase in your views? Or if you’re on Blogger, what are some strategies you use to promote your content and grow your blog?
Wow, this is awesome. And yeah, blogger stats suck. I’m seriously considering making the switch myself!
Thanks Cassie! It is SO worth it if it’s something you think your blog is ready for. :)
YAY! I have been thinking about switching over! This is so fun and exciting!
Thanks Elizabeth! I totally didn’t realize you weren’t on WordPress! So worth all the effort!
Totally! But I have been thinking about the big move. AH.
Right now I have a wordpress blog (not self-hosted) but the one thing about wordpress that has really impressed me is its sense of community. And even new blogs seem to have a chance at getting followers/readers/views/etc. I’m glad the switch worked out for you!
http://www.scribblingmyexistence.wordpress.com
I totally agree! It’s so nice to have that community of other WordPress users to help you out and share your blog with! And thank you!
Those are amazing stats for sure. Are you using any other SEO plugins on your site besides the built in stuff wordpress has?
Nope, just WordPress! I haven’t taken the time to look into anything else, so that’s probably my next step!
That’s pretty impressive!
That is pretty impressive! Checkout WordPress SEO by Yoast, it’s my favorite :)
Congratulations! I’m currently on wordpress.com and I’m thinking to switch to blogger. So much more possibilities in terms of keeping the costs low, get a great design and it also has more storage space for pictures.
Caz | Lunch Break Adventures
Thank you! And I absolutely loved blogger! There are definitely a lot more design options vs. wordpress.com, and I really didn’t have any problems with it!
I have been thinking about the move over to WordPress as well. Everything confuses me though. Did you just go through wordpress.com and buy premium, or did you go through bluehost? Not sure what to do. Right now I am using blogger & bought a domain name from godaddy.
http://www.toewsadventure.com
I was actually in the same situation! I was using blogger with a godaddy domain, and I ended up using Bluehost as my host. Since I also changed my blog name, I used the domain name that came with my hosting for that!
Did you use WordPress.com Premium? Or what?
No, I’ve never actually used WordPress.com, so I just use the WordPress platform and host my website on Bluehost!
Keep in mind that buying premium from WordPress.com does not give you the full WordPress platform. They strip away some features on WordPress.com, such as the ability to use custom themes/plugins. :)
My friend is going to make me a WP theme. Are you saying I shouldn’t go with Premium? What should I do instead?
If your friend is making you a custom WP theme from scratch, you physically cannot use that on WordPress.com. On WordPress.com you can only use the themes they provide for you. You cannot upload your own custom one.
You have to go “self hosted” instead. It’s still WordPress, but instead of putting your site on the free WordPress.com platform (whether or not you pay for “premium” on WP.com is irrelevant here) you pay a hosting company like Bluehost to store your content for you. That means paying to rent hosting space and install the full WordPress platform there.
That’s the only way to get the unrestricted version of WordPress.
There is another thing to keep in mind, though. WP Stats (via Jetpack) are even more accurate than Google Analytics, although you can’t do as much with them. For GA to be more accurate, you need to make sure you’re keeping track of referral spam and either updating your htaccess file or filtering them out. I couldn’t figure out the former, so I set up a filter based on a common referral spam IP address. WP Stats automatically blocks referral spam, so it doesn’t show up in your stats.
Huh, that’s so interesting that WordPress has more accurate stats! I’ve tried my best to filter out spam on GA, but like you said, there isn’t really an easy way to get all of it. Thank you for the tips!
Yeah, it can be hard to keep up with all the different referral spam out there. WP is really on top of it, though, and they block referral spam more or less automatically. Before I started my GA filters, my GA stats were always greater than my WP stats. It’s actually why I wish bloggers who offer sponsorships would include more stats than just GA stats!
Can I ask how much it cost you to switch? I really really want to, but am worried about the cost :)
Of course! In total it was around $250, including two years of hosting, 1 year of domain registration/protection, and the Genesis Framework. It’s definitely a tough upfront cost, but I think it’s worth it! It narrows down to about $5 a month, which when you think about it, that’s not much at all.
Congratulations on your higher page views! :D I hope you see your blog continue to grow. Just keep posting quality content and you’ll see those numbers climb even higher. :)
Thank you!! It’s such an exciting time, and I hope the trend continues! :)
This is so awesome! I definitely experienced the same thing when switching to WP which I think had a lot to do with truncating my posts and having better navigation for users to engage with more than one page at time, which helped a ton! Congrats girl, you’re doing an awesome job :)
Thanks Madison! I think navigation definitely played a huge part in my increase too, even adding the “related posts” at the bottom of my content has helped a ton! :)