New vs Returning ratio
 

What do you see as an acceptable ratio of new vs return visitors? I take it this is an important metric in determining how well what you are doing is working in regards to keeping the visitors interest.

After about a week two blogs (each about 1,000 visitors per day) have the following:

Blog 1: 16% returning
Blog 2: 9% returning

What should I realistically be shooting for here? What do you see with yours?

Also a side question, using Google Analytics stats, does anyone know how to see stats on average as to how often returning visitors are coming back per day? I want to use this to determine whether an extra update would actually help.

Thanks!

I guess it will naturally go up for a time when so new. New stats in:

Blog 1: 21% returning
Blog 2: 11% returning

Still what is a good target for your average porn blog? Common sense would say around 50%+ I would think?

How do you determine this statistic anyway? I can only presume based on cookies, which are unreliable because of the small number of people who regularly clear their cookies -- and hence seem like a new visitor every time.

Still, I'd like to see this stat for my sites also.

I used Google Analytics ( http://www.google.com/analytics ) which is free. I presume they use cookies. Either that or it is based upon IP address. Perhaps both. I will have to look into that.

The Geo-IP tracking feature is pretty cool as well. I am very happy with their stats being a stat junkie myself. :D

Stats junkie here too. But I'm not using Google Analytics coz I'm concerned about giving them too much info on my site. I download my logs daily and run them through a local log analyzer (weblog expert pro).

Strictly out of curiosity, what information are you afraid of google finding out?

on www.adailyfix.com I have 29.4 % returning
on www.xxblogs.com I have 34.2 % returning

Nothing in particular, just anti-big-brother-tin-foil-hat general paranoia. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zKXCQpUnMg

The Google master plan, okay maybe over the top but food for thought.

Thanks! Now I have at least an idea of what to shoot for here.

Personally, I only pay attention to two stats....cost per click vs sales per click...wait I guess I only pay attention to one stat...profit per click

Do you mean click out of your site or into your site? I try to keep track of profit per unique visitor to my sites.

I count click in's (or uniques) for most things.

Right, it's income in the bank at the end of the day that matters. It is easy to get distracted by other stats but ultimately if they send me big checks that's what pleases. :)

Makes sense. I'm new though. At this point my main worry is building traffic to the blogs and retaining visitors.

[underpants gnomes]

1. Collect traffic
2. ?????
3. Profit

[/underpants gnomes]

Phase 1. :D

No it's:

1. Build site
2. ????
3. Traffic arrives
4. Profit.

;-)