Blog Statistics Week 33 – Who Creates the Story Behind the Numbers?

Blog statistics week 33 is here, and as every Thursday, I am taking a closer look at the numbers from Malix.se. But this week, something other than the number of views caught my attention.

🇸🇪 Svenska Bloggstatistik vecka 33 på – vem skapar berättelsen om siffrorna

What does statistics really tell us?

The numbers are what they are. But what I choose to look at, which period I choose, and which numbers I compare can affect the story I see.

And perhaps that tells us something about ourselves as human beings too.

Blog statistics week 33 at Malix.se

As I look more closely at blog statistics week 33, something interesting appears.

These are some of the most-read posts and pages:

• Everyday Life, ADHD and Presence – Malix.se – 25 views
• Water, Love and Respect for What Is Ours – 13 views
• ADHD and Structure – When the Brain Wants Everything Finished – 13 views
• When I Discovered My Own “Us and Them” – 9 views
• I’m Getting Older – But I’m Not Finished Yet – 8 views

I could look at this and say:

“Now I can see that ADHD, everyday life and structure are what my readers want to read about.”

That is one possible interpretation.

But someone else might look at exactly the same list and say:

“The personal reflections continue to matter.”

That is another possible interpretation.

Both could be right.

Blog statistics week 33 – when the biggest number may not be the most important one

Then it gets even more interesting.

During this period, the statistics include:

USA – 684 views
China – 120
Sweden – 87
Singapore – 68
Hong Kong – 50

If I only wanted to show an impressive number, I could write that Malix.se received hundreds of views from the United States in one week.

That sounds fantastic.

But I do not know whether all those views represent people who actually sat down and read my texts. At the same time, 94 percent of the traffic came from desktop computers, which gives me reason to be cautious about the conclusions I draw. Some of the traffic may be automated or may come from systems visiting websites for reasons other than ordinary reading.

So perhaps my 87 Swedish views mean more to me than the 684 American ones.

Or perhaps they don’t.

That is exactly the point.

Blog statistics week 33 – can the numbers tell us something about everyday life?

In blog statistics week 33, I can also see that the number of Swedish views is lower than it was during parts of the summer.

Why?

I don’t actually know.

But I can wonder.

We are now in the middle of August. For many people, the summer holidays are ending and everyday life is returning. People are going back to work, schedules need to be followed, and families are trying to get their everyday routines working again.

Perhaps there is simply less time to sit down and read blogs.

That could be one explanation for the decrease in my Swedish numbers.

But this is where statistics becomes interesting again.

Because this is my interpretation of the numbers – not something the numbers themselves are telling me.

Someone else might say that I have simply written about the wrong things this week. A third person might look at the traffic from Google and reach a completely different conclusion.

To know more, I would need to follow the statistics over a longer period and compare the same period across different years.

And perhaps this is one of the most important things I am learning from my own blog statistics:

Statistics can give us clues. But we need to be careful not to turn our own explanations into facts simply because there are numbers beside them.

Statistics are numbers – we create the story

On Sunday, I wrote about my own “us and them”. It was partly about how our perspective can change depending on where we are standing.

I think statistics can work in much the same way.

A number can be correct and still be used to create very different pictures.

I can choose one week, one month or one year.

I can compare this week with last week or with last year.

I can show the increase and leave out the decrease.

I can highlight 684 views from the United States or the much smaller number of views from Google Search.

None of that necessarily has to be a lie.

But what we choose to show affects the story.

I think that is worth remembering when we encounter statistics in newspapers, advertising, politics and social media – but also when we look at our own numbers.

Sometimes the question needs to be bigger than:

Is the number correct?

We can also ask:

Which period is being shown? What is it being compared with? What has been left out? And who is interpreting the numbers?

Blogging School: How I read my blog statistics

When you start blogging, it is easy to become fixated on the number of views.

I am learning to look more broadly.

Here are some of the things I look at each week:

Which posts are people reading?
This can give me clues about the subjects that interest visitors.

Where are visitors coming from?
This week, Facebook accounts for 30 views and Google Search for 7. That tells me something about how people are finding the site.

Which older posts are still being read?
An old blog post that continues to attract visitors can be just as interesting as a new one.

Which countries does the traffic come from?
Here, it is important not to automatically assume that every view represents a person who has read the entire post.

Which period am I looking at?
A single day can give a very different picture from seven days, a month or a year.

When I look at blog statistics week 33, I therefore try not to focus only on how many views I received. I also look at where visitors came from, what they read and how the numbers change over time.

A small blogging tip

If you have a blog, you do not need to become fixated on whether you received 100 or 1,000 views.

Instead, choose a few questions and follow them over time.

Are more people finding me through Google?

Which subjects do people continue to read about?

Do visitors move from one blog post to other parts of my website?

Does anything change over several months?

Then statistics becomes a tool rather than a grade.

And perhaps the same applies to life

We humans measure a lot.

Weight. Steps. Money. Grades. Followers. Hours worked. How many things we have managed to get done.

But the biggest number does not have to be the most important one.

A walk can mean more than the number of steps.

One real conversation can mean more than a hundred reactions on social media.

And seven people finding a text they genuinely needed may ultimately mean more than hundreds of anonymous page views.

Statistics can help us understand.

But only when we remember that the numbers are part of the story – not the whole story.

And then I think back to Saturday

As I write this, I find myself thinking again about the woman who stood in front of me on Saturday.

It was the same conversation that led me to write about my own “us and them”. She ended our political discussion about the Sweden Democrats by saying something along the lines of:

“I’ve read the statistics.”

At the time, I did not really have an answer.

Today, I think I do.

Not an answer to her statistics, because I still do not know exactly which statistics she meant, what period they covered or which numbers she had looked at.

Instead, my answer is:

Statistics alone are not an answer.

That does not mean statistics are unimportant. Quite the opposite. Statistics can give us knowledge that our own individual experiences could never provide.

But to understand what statistics are telling us, I need to know what was measured, during which period, what the numbers are being compared with and what other factors may have influenced the result.

And then comes interpretation.

I can look at my 684 views from the United States and say that Malix.se has suddenly gained a large American audience.

Or I can look at exactly the same number and wonder whether a large part of that traffic is automated.

I can see that my Swedish views have decreased and say that people are no longer interested in what I write.

Or I can wonder whether summer holidays are ending and people are currently spending more of their time getting work, school and everyday routines back into place.

The same numbers.

Different possible stories.

There is an old saying often translated as “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Who originally coined the phrase is disputed.

I would not go that far.

Statistics do not have to lie.

But we humans can make statistics tell very different stories depending on which numbers we choose, what we compare them with and which questions we ask.

So the next time someone says to me:

“But I’ve read the statistics.”

I know what I want to ask:

Which statistics? Over what period? What are you comparing them with? What has been left out? And what do you believe the numbers actually show?

Because perhaps “I’ve read the statistics” is not the end of a conversation.

Perhaps that is where the conversation should really begin.

Between the Lines – Blog Statistics Week 33

When I look at blog statistics week 33, I see numbers, countries, views and traffic sources. But there is so much the numbers cannot tell me.

87 Swedish views tell me that the site was viewed 87 times from Sweden. But that number does not tell me whether the person reading had plenty of time or only a few minutes to spare. It does not tell me why someone stayed with a particular text or what they took away from it.

Just as in a conversation, there are things that cannot be seen in the words themselves.

Perhaps sometimes we need to read the statistics between the lines too.

What do you think when you encounter statistics?

I am curious about how you, as a reader, think about this.

When you see statistics in a newspaper or on social media, or hear someone use numbers in a discussion, do you stop to wonder what lies behind them?

• Have you ever seen the same statistics used to argue two completely different points?
• Do you usually check which period a study covers?
• What makes you trust a number – and what makes you sceptical?
• Is there something in your own life that you measure where the number perhaps does not tell the whole truth?

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. I often find that things become most interesting when we compare our different ways of looking at the same thing.

Read more on Malix.se

If you would like to continue with the thoughts behind today’s post, you can read When I Discovered My Own “Us and Them”. That is where I write about Saturday’s encounter and what happened when I discovered my own tendency to divide people into “us” and “them”.

You can also read ADHD and Structure – When the Brain Wants Everything Finished and my other posts about everyday life, ADHD and presence.

If you are looking for something more practical, visit Tools for Life, where I collect materials and exercises for reflection, structure and everyday life.

And if you have a blog of your own, you can follow Blogging School here at Malix.se. I share what I am learning about blogging, statistics, SEO and how a blog can develop over time.

Would you like to follow along?

Malix.se is about everyday life, being human and all those things that cannot always be captured by a simple number.

I write about ADHD, relationships, structure, compassion, personal development and my own reflections along the way. In Blogging School, you can also follow the work behind the blog itself.

Subscribe to Malix.se if you would like to know when something new is published.

Then you do not have to remember to look for the next post – it will find its way to you.

And next Thursday, I will look at the numbers again.

Perhaps they will tell a completely different story then.

“Live today. Right now. Yesterday is no longer here; it lives in our history. Tomorrow will bring its beauty tomorrow. Right now is what matters.”
— Carina Ikonen Nilsson