I was checking out my buddy Rachit’s blog and it led me to Alex King’s blog.

Alex is involved with the development of the WordPress blogging platform (of which this blog is based on) and I checked out one of the plugins he’s developed.

It blew my mind away.

If you’ve been a regular visitor to this blog, you’d notice that recently my blog posts have a ‘popularity’ rating at the end of each post.

In addition, a list of ‘Most Popular Posts’ appears on the right sidebar. It also has a ‘Recent Comments’ listing which makes it easy for new blog readers to access information on the site.

But here’s what I really like about it:

You can access and assess the metrics for the post popularity.

I’d only installed it recently, so the data will be more accurate for newer posts.

But judging by the data captured, my post on Mike Filsamie’s Death of Internet Marketing ranks at the top of the table.

It looks like 549 blog visitors have picked it up from visiting the blog, while 954 have accessed it through a RSS feed. (the two groups could possibly overlap with someone picking up the RSS eventually coming to the site to read it).

The plugin adopts a holistic approach, factoring in comments, pings and trackbacks.

It’s a fairly simple mechanism. Check out the setup screen:

You can adjust the weightage of the various criteria, which affects it’s eventual popularity score.

I’d not use the popularity score as an entirely accurate metric however, but it’ll give you a ballpark measure of your blog’s readership and activity.

With that data in mind, you can further sharpen your blogging efforts.

Check out:

–> Alex King’s WordPress plugins