5 WordPress Plugins to Help You Monitor Your Website’s Traffic

WordPress makes managing your content and website data a lot easier. This is often accomplished with the mostly automated plugins that can be installed to your WordPress dashboard. One of the main plugins that all WordPress websites should have is a type of website traffic monitor plugin. There are many different options of WordPress plugins to help you monitor your website’s traffic, but here are five of the more recommended plugins:

1. Google Analytics Dashboard

Using the Google Analytics Dashboard plugin will allow you to view Google Analytics data from within your WordPress dashboard. With this plugin, you can make Analytics data available to other users that are logged in to the dashboard. Alternatively, you may incorporate part of your Google Analytics data into your posts or include it with your theme.

2. Google Analytics for WordPress

The Google Analytics for WordPress plugin simply allows you to better track any visitor data to your WordPress blog. This plugin incorporates your Google Analytics tracking code for the fastest tracking possible. The difference with this particular plugin, versus the previous one, is that it only makes for simple setup and management of the tracking. The actual data will be made viewable in your Google Analytics admin panel. Also, there are many alternative Google Analytics plugins that you may want to consider, such as Google Analyticator.

3. Statcounter

 The Statcounter plugin provides live tracking and extensive data analysis. This is a popular alternative to the Google Analytics tools for many as it offers you the ability to examine your traffic based on their exit link activity, entry pages, exit pages, time on page, and much more. If you are looking to complete live tracking with detailed analysis, then the Statcounter plugin will likely serve as a viable alternative to Google Analytics.

4. StatPress

StatPress is a bit dated but it remains as one of the most popular and effective WordPress plugins for tracking and analyzing your blog’s traffic. It allows you to view quality information on the entry and exit points of your blog and common habits of your visitors. You could customize the StatPress widget according to the preferred data to gather, such as the visitor’s IP, operating system (OS), browser, and general statistics created from your visitor’s as a group. The StatPress plugin also offers a feature that allows you to block certain IP’s from editing your stats file. StatPress Reloaded is also a great option if you would prefer a more up to date plugin with the same technology as the original StatPress plugin.

5. WassUp Real Time Analytics

WassUp Real Time Analytics provides live updating for extensive traffic data. The interface for this plugin is very user friendly, which makes the data very easy to analyze and organize. WassUp serves as an effective traffic analysis plugin for SEO analytics purposes. You can figure out almost everything that your visitors do to get to your website, what all they do on your website, and what they are doing when they leave it. Data such as searched keywords, visitor types, and timing of visitors are all taken into consideration when using this especially effective real time analytics tool.

These five plugins are all extremely effective for general traffic data reporting. Some are more useful than others for detailed analysis of your traffic. Google Analytics has long been vouched for as a highly accurate traffic reporting tool. However, it does not offer complete flexibility and features that may be necessary to learn new SEO and marketing approaches from your visitor data. In closing, there are many different options but these 5 WordPress plugins to help you monitor your website’s traffic are all highly recommended.

About Stephane Brault

Stephane is a web developer and system administrator with over 18 years of experience. Specialized in PHP programming and Linux server administration, he also provided development and consulting services to SMBs for several years before becoming an online entrepreneur.