I know.
I usually I don’t post this type of topics on this section of my blog.
But this happens to my my 500th post on my blog. So, I feel that this topic actually fits the occasion.
You know, I wasn’t too much of a fan of Google Analytics before.
Actually I’ve never been a fan of any analytics, even though I’ve always known they are important when you have an online business.
But as my mom used to say, only stupid people never change their mind.
And I sure changed mine about analytics.
I love it now. And I use it more and more.
Better start loving something that you need to work with on a daily or weekly basis, right?
So, now I check that darn Google Analytics often.
And what do I discover?
France is Number 6 on my Google Analytics
The other day, as I was looking at my blog traffic, I realized that my blog is not seen only here in the US, or even Canada, the UK and India.
Actually, my blog has being landed on in over 100 countries around the world during the last 30 days, according to my analytics.
Truth be told, I was pretty much ignorant to the fact until very recently, but I thought that was pretty cool.
The place I did make a special stop to investigate further, though, was France, of course.
France is the 6th country out of 100+ where my blog has received some kind of traffic.
Now does this has anything to do with the fact that I blog a lot about France, French food, and other French culture related topics?
It most definitely does. I’m sure.
See the analytics map below (the very tiny dots are the small towns that I didn’t mention) where my blog has been landed on.
As you can see, pretty much all over the country, north, south, east and west.
Investigating Further
When you click countries, in your Google Analytics, it gives you the list of all the countries you are getting traffic from. The most traffic on top and least traffic at the bottom.
Then, if you want to investigate further, you can click on each specific country.
Once you click on a specific country, Google Analytics will break it down into regions.
Here are the main regions where people land on my blog in France.
Once you click on a specific region, you’re able to see each specific city or town. When you click on the map (as seen above) you’re able to see where they are located in the country.
Google Analytics will tell you exactly how many visitors you had in each city or town during the last month, along with all the page views, sessions, bounce rates, behaviors, and other data you can look deep into.
As far as I can see, my home page is the number one page seen in France.
The reason for that may be that some people that I know are looking for me by name, but I certainly don’t know people on all those regions, so that remain a mystery to me.
But besides my home page, the favorite posts of the French during the last 30 days has been…
2) Five Most Favorite French Desserts
3) 5 Reasons Why You’re Not Ready To Move Overseas (a very recent post).
Two pages that are seen more than I thought, are my about page and my contact/hire me page.
Then, I thought to myself, how so many French folks even come to a site that’s all in English?
But of course, they use the translation tool!
I went to Google FR. page which looks like this:
Then let’s say they find me somehow on results and they see this result below.
Rather than clicking directly on the link, they can click where it says “translate this page” …
And then, here is what they see… My page translated all in French.
Now, you’ve got to remember that’s a Google Translation – not a human translation- so it’s got its hiccups, for sure, but it’s good enough for some to to understand what the content they are reading is about.
Very cool, indeed!
Deep Down Small Little French Towns
One of the regions that intrigued me right away and wanted to investigate further was the region I grew up in, the Rhone-Alpes region.
When I clicked on it, Google Analytics broke it down into cities and even small towns.
There I found out that, not surprisingly, the top traffic came from Lyon. Not because it’s the city I was born in, but more so because it’s the second largest city of the country.
But besides the capital of the region, I discovered several much smaller towns.
And what do I see?
An ever so familiar name of a town called Saint-Genis-Laval.
Saint-Genis-Laval is a busy little town located less than 10 miles from Lyon, and the town where some of my family members live.
That’s how I found out that at least one my family members have to have been on my blog.
Why?
Because when I saw that there were 2 visitors in the particular town of St-Genis-Laval, I can’t think of anyone else.
Really!
My guess is that they Googled my name and there I was. (Because my first and last names together are pretty unique I can be found easily).
How cool is it that they landed on my blog?
Very cool, if you ask me.
If they only knew that I know!
I tell you, the miracles of modern technology.
Yes, miracles.
You know when I used to go at my uncle’s house in Saint-Genis-Laval, France as a child and a teenager, if someone had told me, well, one day you will have a blog in the United States, and from over there, you will be able to see that your uncle has been on your blog , from his kitchen table right here in small town Saint-Genis-Laval.
I would have said, no way! Right!
Yet, again that’s what happened!
Very cool, indeed.
If you have a website, or a blog, are you looking into who’s investigating you?
I’ll tell you, it’s a lot of fun!
I hope you enjoyed my little special France/Google Analytics trip here. A different kind of travel, which happens to celebrate my 500th post.
Let me know what you think below.
Your comments are always appreciated!
Isn’t it fascinating to see where all your blog readers come from? It’s amazing that your home area is represented, Sylviane.
Google Analytics is great and I also use Clicky for even more info.
Thanks for the interesting post!
Sue
Sue Anne Dunlevie invites you to read..Show, Donât Tell! How Blog Writers Attract Readers With Word Picturing
Hi Sue,
Nice to see you here.
Yes, I’m glad I managed to get over my laziness when it comes to checking my analytics because I’ve learned so much. Few day ago I may have spent 45 minutes checking everything on there 🙂
Now, Clicky, I’ll be sure to check that out. Never even heard of this tool before, so thank you so much for the tip.
Thanks for coming by, appreciate you input.
Have a great weekend!
This is such a fun post Sylviane. Mostly I love that you are celebrating your 500th blog post by sharing a bit about your home country and your childhood.
You got me curious too!
Could you write one of your posts in French so that English speakers would need to rely on Google Translate? I wonder what that would do for your French stats? It could be an interesting experiment!!
Enjoy your weekend!
~Deborah
Deborah Tutnauer invites you to read..Why Customers Buy – Crucial Clarity
Hey again Deborah,
Yes, this was a fun one. A very not like any other, I guess, so perfect to mark number 500.
If I wrote a post in French, I can tell you that the French would be so relieved, but then it would be my English readers who would pull their hair.
You see, Google Translate is great for short sentences, technical terms, and single words, but it’s pretty bad for translating a whole paragraph. Because a language is so subtle, Google being a machine, and not a human brain, it gets a bit lost. So you have sentences that don’t make much sense at all.
As I said in the post, it’s still good for those guys to have a pretty good idea of what the post is about, but as for the language it’s pretty much butchered. I played around and read some lines here and there, and I sure hope those guys realize that “I” didn’t write it this way, but Google did 🙂
May be I could write the same post in both languages one day. Definitely something to think about.
So glad you came here today. Very much appreciated, and you have a great weekend.
My friend keeps getting on me to use it, but if it’s a lot of maps like you say in this post, I may not be able to access it.
Hopefully I can change my mind about it one day. I like your mother’s old saying.
🙂
Glad you are being searched over there in France.
Have a great weekend and congratulations on your 500th post.
Hi Kerry,
Well, I like the fact that you like that old saying, and hope you will change your mine about using Google Analytics. It’s great.
Now I was wondering why you seem to be apprehensive to us it? It’s free you know. You can’t go wrong with it. There’s also Clicky which my friend Sue is suggesting in her comment above. I’m using it since yesterday and its has real time traffic, and you can see your traffic literally minute by minute. I registered right away and liked it instantly!
Thank you so much for coming by, and have a wonderful weekend.
Hello Sylviane,
Wow! Sounds great that you have completed your 500 posts on your blog. Keep it up!
I am also a big fan of google analytics. It gives us the wonderful tracking data. This is good to know that you are getting traffic from 100+ countries. I am also getting around 90+ countries. Hope, this no. will increase soon.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful piece. I really enjoyed reading here.
Have a great Sunday!
Hello and welcome to my blog Nisha,
Yes, this blog has now 500 posts and counting. While I lost a huge ranking on Alexa because of my merge and the fact that I didn’t post in weeks back at the end of last year, last week that ranking moved up (meaning my ranking number became smaller) tremendously, so while that’s not ALL that a blog needs, for sure, it’s still a good sign to see.
I hope you keep growing as well and will check you out.
Thanks for coming.
It seems a lot of users from France to visit your blog daily and read it because it have a lot of information as the best resources for them.
So keep it up with the job and write more useful article to publish in this blog.
Alize Camp invites you to read..How to watch free movies online: top 10 websites
Hi Alize,
Yes, my blog is bound to attract a French crowd, so I’ll keep it up.
Thank you for the encouragement and for your comment.
Congratulations on your 500th post Sylviane! This is really interesting and useful information with Google Analytics. I would like to get into this for my own blog as well.
Jessica Pasa invites you to read..Passing Down French in the Family: Merci Grand-mère
Thanks Jessica,
Did you register your blog with Google Analytics yet? If you go on there, that’s pretty easy. They’ll give you the steps. Let me know if you need help. If I can I will 🙂
~Sylviane
Sylviane recently I register my blog with Google Analytics. And I got lots of infortion from your helpful blog. It was my pleasure if I got your website before register my blog with Google Analytics but now your information will help who don’t register his blog with Google Analytics yet. Thanks Sylviane your kind word and hope I ‘ll come again to know more notes from your blog. God bless you.
CSOFT International, Ltd invites you to read..Pickatale: Learning through Multilingual Story-telling App
This is absolutely fantastic…. sylvianne!
i believe France is among the tier 2 countries and traffic from these websites sounds not so bad after all.
keep it up….
-Babs.
Babs Reviews invites you to read..3 Amazing Ways to Get More Out Of Social Media Websites Even If You Have No Time
Hello Babs,
Not sure I understand what you meant in your comment, but thank you for coming by my blog.
Sylviane