What Is A Blog Session?

The difference between Sessions and Pageviews (and what really matters)

Social Media ROI and understanding blog metrics are hot, and dare I say it, confusing topics. Google Analytics can be totally befuddingly so today I'm going to tell you the tale of two blogs in an attempt to explain them. What I want you to see is as we explore "sessions vs pageviews" (formerly called "Unique Visitors vs Total Pageviews) is why there's more to understanding a blogger's influence than numbers alone…

Before we get started, if you aren't yet using Google Analytics to track the traffic on your site then you need to get it installed asap. Google Analytics is the industry standard when it comes to traffic and using an alternative can make comparing your traffic with the average a bit like comparing apple and oranges. There's really no time to waste with this so if you haven't got it installed just google "Installing Google Analytics on {insert your blog platform here e.g. blogger, wordpress etc…} tutorial" and you will find loads of great tutorials to show you how to do it.

Once your set up and running you will start to gather loads of information about who is visiting your blog – things like where they live, whether they are male or female, what leads them to your site (do they come from Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google Search, via a direct link etc…) and so much more. You will also find out how many people come, how long they spend on your site, what the most popular posts are on your blog and how many pages they look at on your site. Google Analytics is a data geeks dream! But, even for those of us who prefer the 'big picture' we can find out so much truly useful information to help us grow our blog and serve our readers.

Today I want to focus specifically on the issue of 'reach'. That is, how many people are coming to your blog.

When it comes to working with brands these are the numbers you will hear people talking about the most. They are often called 'vanity metrics' because of the way the make you feel!

google analytics sessions or pageviews

Before we get started let's outline the key terms:

Sessions: Formerly called "visits", a session tracks the interactions that take place on your blog within a certain timeframe. The timeframe is usually set so that a session ends once there has been 30minutes of inactivity, ie. you might be reading this blog post now and then go on to read a few more on the blog. Once you have stopped interacting with this site for 30minutes the sessions will be over. If you came back 1hour later to read another post then a new session would be logged.

Users: Formerly called "unique visitors" this is number of individual visitors who have at least one session within the chosen timeframe (ie the past month).

Total Pageviews: This is the total number of pages that users looked at on your blog within the chosen timeframe.

Feeling confused? Let's break it down…

1 person comes to your site and spends 25minutes reading 5 blog posts (each on their own page). The number of "pageviews" is 5, the number of "users" is 1 and the number of "sessions" is 1.

1 person comes to your site and spends 25 minutes reading 5 blog posts (each on their own page) and then gets a phone call – they are on the phone for 35 minutes and when they get off the phone they return to your blog to finish reading the last post. The number of "pageviews" is 5, the number of "users" is 1 and the number of "sessions" is 2 (because there was over 30minutes of inactivity from the reader while they were on your site).

Over the course of a month these figures are added together giving you an indication of both how many visitors/eyeballs your site has had and pages they have looked at.

So what does this mean for working with brands?

Many advertising/marketing/PR agencies are primarily concerned with the "Users" figure – that is, the number of unique people that views your content as this is what they can report back to their clients about how far reaching their campaign was. Often you will see blog advertising and sponsored post rates based on around this number because it is seen as the key indicator of a blogger's reach (and influence). Because reach dominates spend when it comes to traditional media, this idea has carried over into blogger relations.

I see things a bit differently and want to use the tale of two blogs to tell you why. (These blogs are fictional but the trends in each are based on real blogs)

The Tale Of Two Bloggers

Meet Suzie, she's a lovely lass who has been blogging for the last couple of years. Over that time she's amassed a decent number of monthly pageviews – around 40,000 in fact.

Now meet Brad, a lovely bloke and a mad keen blogger who writes every day. His blog is currently bringing in traffic of 90,000 pagviews a month. Impressive, yes?

If all you look at is one number, all you get is one perspective.

While Susie's blog is bringing in 40,000 pageviews per month she gets 'only' 11,000 users to her site. Her analytics tell her that each visitor spends an average of 12minutes on her site.

Brad on the other hand has 90,000 pageviews per month but an impressive 78,000 uniques. His analytics tell him that each visitor spends about 1minute on his site.

What does that mean exactly?

It means that both Brad and Suzie are reaching their audiences in very different ways.

Every time someone come's to Suzie's blog they visit, on average, 3.6 pages and spend over 12 minutes on the site. This means that Suzie's readership are regular, loyal and heavily invested in what she is saying. This is not just great for Suzie, it's also great for any businesses/brands that she chooses to partner with as they will be reaching an audience who is truly connected with Suzie.

Brad's blog is different; most people coming to his blog only look at the one page and don't stay for very long. While Brad is reaching a lot more people than Suzie (78,000/month to Suzie's 11,000/month) their level of connection to him as the author, and thus his influence over them probably isn't as strong as Suzie's is.

Brad's blog is clearly reaching a lot of people regularly BUT Suzie is also reaching a steady number of people and the numbers would indicate that her readers have a high investment in her personally. Though she may not get as many "eyeballs", the ones she does get are listening closely. To dismiss her, or even to think that her blog is "worth less" or "less influential" than Brad's is to see things very one dimensionally. Some may say that her blog is even more influential than Brad's because of the level of connection she has with her readers…

To think that reach is the most important way to work with a blogger is to misunderstand the power of blogging. It doesn't make sense to look at in this way because blogging isn't about eyeballs, but about the influence and connection a blogger has with their audience – knowing how many unique visitors come to a site is only one teeny, tiny part of a bloggers reach – their true value is in their community and as I've tried to show here, we can't get an idea of what that is by one number alone. We need to view bloggers and blogging more holistically and develop ways that demonstrate both tangibly and intuitively the connection a blogger has with their readers.

Looking at only one metric, only gives you one part of the picture.

Agree or Disagree? What do you think is most important when it comes to blog metrics?