How often should I check my website stats...

[da1prophet]

I'm really interested in Steve's take on this, but other opinions are also welcome....

Obviously if you have a website you want to generate traffic and, if that's your goal, you also want to generate revenue via AdSense or whatever.

I've found Steve's experience building and growing this site very interesting, but I found myself wondering something yesterday--how often does he check his website stats like traffic and AdSense earnings? And how often did he check them when he was first starting the site? Does he do it more now than he used to or vice versa?

While I subscribe to his theory that if you create value for others with your content the rest will take care of itself I've found myself checking my stats all the time. If the traffic drops from one day to the next, I get sort of bummed out over it. Ditto the AdSense revenues. Obviously I'm better off putting energy into building the site, writing compelling content, etc. than fretting over these numbers--especially since I just relaunched my site a couple of weeks ago. On the other hand, the information derived from these stats can be useful.

So Steve, and/or the rest of you--what's your opinion on this? How often do you check your site/AdSense stats? How often is too often? What isn't often enough? How do you react to these stats in terms of your promotion and/or content?

[Shaden]

I have exactly the same problem. It can be a real time drainer constantly checking your stats. When I first set up my blog I was on about 5 times an hour to see if anybody was reading my material. Obviously this wasn't good for my productivity. You can't produce valuabe content if you're busy seeing if people are on your site.

Now I check once in the morning and once in the evening. I keep a record of my stats in my spreadsheet. I think the best advice I can give you is to not get too attached to the results of your site. That produces stress and will affect the time and effort you put into your work.