The purpose of analyzing your web site statistics is to look for trends and to research the success level of your marketing campaigns. The numbers themselves can be misleading, as statistical packages count "hits" in different ways. If someone visits a page on your site doesn't mean that they read it completely.
The idea with web site statistics, then, is to look for trends. Instead of looking at the numbers a concrete items, look at them over time to see if they're increasing or decreasing. For example, if you do an internet marketing campaign, then look at your web site statistics to see if the campaign increased the number of hits to your site.
With that said, here are some numbers you should look at:
Visitor Information
There are three areas that are important to review each month and during each marketing campaign. The number of unique visitors will help you to determine whether your site is receiving more or less visitors each month.
The location tells you what country, and sometimes what State, the visitors are coming from. This is important if you're concerned about your global reach to other countries, or if you've done a marketing campaign in other States. Note that this is the State of the ISP where they connected to the Internet. Because AOL is in Virginia, you will have an inordinate amount of Virginia visitors, even though these people are actually all over the USA.
An important distinction is the concept of "visitors" versus "hits". Each person who visits your site is considered a "visitor". Each time a visitor looks at a page, that page and its contents are accessed, including the graphics on the page. As example, say that your home page has two graphics on it, plus some text. That is considered THREE elements on the page. When a visitor visits that page once, your statistics will show ONE visitor and THREE hits.
Time of Day Activity
This area of your statistics helps you to determine which days of the week have the most activity, and which time of day is the most active. This can be helpful to know when to schedule chats and teleclasses. For instance, if Wednesdays at 3PM are popular times for your site, they may be popular times for teleclasses. It's important to note here that one of the most popular times for people to search the web is weekdays after lunch. (People are at work and having a sugar low after digesting their lunch and are surfing the net instead of working.) If this is a popular time for people to be surfing the net, then this might also be a popular time for an internet chat on your web site.
Referrals
This section of your statistics will tell you who is sending people to your web site. It lists which search engines people use, as well as which keywords or key phrases people use to find your site. In addition, this section will also list what other sites are linking from their site to your site. (When someone links from their site to your site, it's called an "inbound link" or "incoming link".)
Pages
This section of your statistics will help you to determine which pages are visited most often, how long people stay on a page (presumably to read it), and which page people exit your site from. Again, trends matter here more than the concrete numbers. Are certain pages more popular than others? Are people only spending 5 seconds on a page that should take 3 minutes to read?
Error reports
This section tells you where people had problems accessing your site. If people try to access a certain page and can't, it will be recorded here. If your site has been unavailable, you'll see these numbers rise.
For a list of all internet error message numbers and they're corresponding meaning, check out this website:
http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/error.asp
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many number to look at in your statistics, and many ways to interpret them. If you pay more attention to trends and problems, and less attention to actual numbers, you'll be ahead of the game!
About The Author
? 2004 Karyn Greenstreet.
Karyn Greenstreet is a Self Employment expert and small business coach. She shares tips, techniques and strategies with self-employed people to create and grow their businesses, stay focused and motivated, and perform at their peak. Visit her website at http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/error.asp
Lincoln Stretch rentals Alsip ..Every website owner wants their website to be popular; some... Read More
1. Make all or part of your site into a... Read More
Internet advertising is not easy.It is a numbers game.The more... Read More
There are no hidden secrets on how to rank high... Read More
Are you attempting to become a Google junior by adding... Read More
Link Exchanges are a very time consuming project. The time... Read More
Sometimes you need a kick start to get of the... Read More
1: Original and Fresh Content Present your visitors content they... Read More
So we gather in all the relevant information we can... Read More
Everyone wants to know the big secret to driving traffic... Read More
When you are trying to promote your website, you want... Read More
In the old days of the internet, links were the... Read More
PageRank (PR) is Google's way of measuring the quality and... Read More
For the past few years, I've been stashed away in... Read More
Be picky about who will link to you; shoot and... Read More
A classic way of getting seen and noticed on the... Read More
It's a common story. Someone builds a great site, populates... Read More
Here are 10 great ways to boost your web traffic:1.... Read More
Why Award Sites?Award sites are, in essence, directories that hand... Read More
Just to recap - Part 1 of this article outlined... Read More
Most people have the notion that generating traffic is a... Read More
Would you like to get unlimited viral traffic to your... Read More
We all know the value of getting links to our... Read More
I bet you already knew this.The two largest problems that... Read More
Digital Economy : What Is e-Marketing : Internet Search Engines... Read More
Western Springs shuttle limo ..Link Exchanges also known as "Reciprocal Links" are an arrangement... Read More
There have been a lot of changes on the web... Read More
Traffic-generation is a hot topic for marketers. In particular, "free... Read More
The first part has dealt with introductory elements which could... Read More
Five tips to effectively schedule your content.In order to get... Read More
Building a successful web site is a process that works... Read More
Do you know what kind of sites are suitable link... Read More
This is the 3rd day of "Free Traffic Course".This day... Read More
Some of the best advertising available online would be getting... Read More
If you're feeling a bit of confusion and frustration about... Read More
Ok so the first way to get traffic is not... Read More
Should link exchanges be used? What are link exchanges? Do... Read More
Getting visitors to your web site is not one of... Read More
There are two types of tools I sometime use to... Read More
In this Article we look at the second competitive advantage... Read More
A lot of website owners work tirelessly at increasing their... Read More
IntroductionBanner exchanges allow you - as a website owner -... Read More
The world wide web or www is a wonderful, inspiring,... Read More
"Submit to 10,000 Search Engines" or "Submit to over 200,000... Read More
The more traffics you get at your website, the more... Read More
We all need traffic. It's the life-blood of an online... Read More
It appears that most webmasters have come from the world... Read More
How to increase your website traffic with zero cost'. It's... Read More
Do you know that you can promote your home business... Read More
Targeted website traffic is the lifeblood of any website looking... Read More
Traffic Building |