I'm looking for an alternative to Google Analytics and would love to find a traffic/statistics software that was made specifically for those who are interested in improving their SEO efforts. Is there anything like that out there? Do you use anything other than Google for tracking, and if so, what?
Well, I use Piwik and Google analytics. No statistic software is 100% accurate, you can disable them with certain addons (like ghosterly etc.). So I use 2 and cross reference the results to get a better idea of what is going on.
Piwik is a good choice and answers most requirements + gives additional features. Another one I'm very pleased with is getclicky (getclicky.com). Its not free but does the work. I would recommend moving away from Google Analytics if you have multiple sites from the same niche. Google uses the Analytics code to look for networks and once a network is exposed it can be heavily penalized.
I have "counterize II" on all of my blogs. It is a free plug in and it will give you in real time all of your statistics in dashboard. and....it is as easy as it gets! download link- wordpress.org/extend/plugins/counterizeii/ arnold55 mike reynolds
I agree it is the best too, it just may need some time until you study it cause it has lot of functions.
If you are ready to spend some money for quality SEO analysis tool then also have a look at tools provided by SEOMoz. They are very popular for this kind of stuff.
Thank you for all of the suggestions! Why not Google? My resolution this year was to go on a Google diet. I'm using alternatives wherever practical. It's freaky how many services I've been using one company for (phone, browser, kindle, analytics, blogger, email, docs for backing up my computer files, docs for assigning tasks to those I work with, Gtalk to communicate with my kids when I'm out, Picasa to store photos, search, bookmarks, etc. etc. etc.) It's not been easy, but I'm finding I'm liking the alternatives even better!