Image by Andrew Wilkinson via Flickr

Sometimes its nice to know who’s been visiting your blog and where they came from, rather than just a numbers game – “i had so many visitors last week” etc. Making good use of visitor statistics can help you fine-tune copy and content if you’re a serious online marketeer.

And if you’re not, then there’s still nothing more satisfying than seeing daily visitor numbers rise week on week. If nothing else, it proves you’re doing something right.

Blogger and WordPress blog platforms make it really easy to quickly add stat programs like Google Analytics and StatCounter through their Admin User Panels. In Blogger’s case, you simply need to add a html/javascript gadget and copy and paste the StatCounter tracking code into it. It really is that simple.

However, when I came to add StatCounter stats to my Tumblr account, I found it rather more challenging.

Tumblr is described as “a blogging platform that allows users to post text, images, video, links, quotes, and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users are able to “follow” other users and see their posts together on their dashboard.

\You can like or reblog other blogs on the site and other users can do the same to your posts. The service emphasizes customizability and ease of use” (see wikipedia)

I’ve been using to collate a fantasy iPod playlist, posting a different music track or video from YouTube each day. I now have a steady stream of fellow music lovers following my posts.

I couldn’t find anything in the help pages and most online searches drew a blank.

Then I found, almost by accident, the nugget of information I needed: how to install javascript into your Tumblr template, and so I’d like to share that information with you here.

As with all template changes, please, please make sure you’ve got a back up somewhere first (expand widgets if you’re doing such template changes on Blogger) as things can go wrong and be very very hard to recover from. You’ve been warned! (But don’t let that put you off trying altogether).

So in my case, I wanted to install the custom tracking javascript supplied by StatCounter. Here’s what you do.

1 – Log into your Tumblr Account.

2 – Click the “Customise” link.

3 – Click “Theme” and then select “Use Custom HTML”.

4 – Scroll to the end of the code and paste your StatCounter code JUST BEFORE the < /body>  </html> tags.

5 – Don’t forget to click “Save Changes”.

6 – Log back into your StatCounter account to check that it is recording visits (unless you’ve purposefully blocked your IP address from being recorded as a visit).

You can find out more about using StatCounter – a FREE visitor tracking counter at StatCounter

Jonathan Crouch is Technical Partner and website designer for Fabulous Photo Gifts – personalised photo gift company. In his quieter moments, he blogs ‘how-to’ and ‘SEO’ self help articles for small businesses and individuals, based on his own years of experience. Website: http://www.fabulousphotogifts.co.uk Blog: http://purple13.blogspot.com Tumblr: http://fabulousphotogifts.tumblr.com/
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