Are you a slave of your site counter?

On a lecture I attended last Saturday, I bumped into a professional web developer and had a short talk on site optimization and site counters.

He asked me what my purpose was in setting up a counter in my blog site. I told him I wanted to know how many people visit my site and I wanted to know basic information about my readers, like where they come from, and sometimes to visit their referring URLs. Aside from that, I also told him, it gives me motivation to write when I see the number on my counter rises.

He asked further how much time I spent reviewing the details of my site meter. I told him not a lot, like one to two minutes (of course I didn’t tell him I only spent few minutes because only a few people visit my site). He told me I’m okay, ‘just making sure I won’t be a slave of my site counter.

He said he know a couple of people who spends longer time analyzing their site counter reports as if doing a statistics project than updating their entries. Further, he said, slowly these people loose their readership because they cannot keep up with the demands of their readers. According to him, regular visitors to a site expect something new each time they drop by, so I should update often, preferably on a schedule, to please my visitors. Furthermore, he said, your site meter will follow to rise.

Hmmm…why does it sound familiar?