How to Use bit.ly to Track Clicks On Your Links

Many are aware of Google Analyticsto measure web site traffic on their own pages. But setting the tool up correctly is quite involving and many give up half way through. Google analytics, once you succeeded in setting everything up correctly will send you a weekly detailed report on the visits to your site.

Google Analytics. Image at Flickr

Chris Thompkins published an article on ezinearticles.com which describes how to use the URL shortener bit.ly to monitor clicks on links of one’s pages. You will have to register on bit.ly and add a button to your web browser. After that you can just click on that button when you are visiting the page in question to see the statistics.

Read more in his article: Do You Know How Many Clicks Your Link Is Getting?.

But if you use wordpress.com (like I do here) then you have all this built-in in the dashboard and you won’t have to deal with additional buttons and registrations. I anyway recommend using wordpress instead of a “normal” home page using the blog for actual news and to share ideas and to use the static pages for the “about” and “services”, “contact”, …

What is your experience? Which tools do you use for monitoring and tracking? What are your recommendations?

Do You Know How Many Clicks Your Link Is Getting? (ezinearticles.com — mentioned above)
11 Google Analytics Tricks to Use for Your Website (seomoz.org)
One Of New York’s Hottest Startups Is About To Take On Google (GOOG) (businessinsider.com)
Bit.ly Rolls Out Improved Real-Time Analytics Dashboard For Enterprise Users (techcrunch.com)

About Hellmuth Broda

Independent Information and Communications Technology Strategist with an interest in the construction sites between business, society and technology. http://www.hellmuthbroda.com

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2 Responses to How to Use bit.ly to Track Clicks On Your Links

Training Weights says:

April 19, 2012 at 16:50

Hi there, There’s no doubt that your website might be having browser compatibility issues. Whenever I take a look at your blog in Safari, it looks fine however when opening in I.E., it’s got some overlapping issues. I merely wanted to give you a quick heads up! Besides that, excellent site!

Hellmuth Broda says:

April 20, 2012 at 09:28

Training Weights,

Thanks for your compliments and thanks for pointing out the compatibility issue. I did not know that there are still people out there who use I. E. 😉

Since I am using a basic “theme” of wordpress.com there is nothing I can do about the text overlap issue. I will bring this to the attention of the friendly people at wordpress.com. I. E. has apparently ideological issues to follow the published W3C standards.

B.t.w. which version of I.E. are you using?