How to Analyze Website Traffic

Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an exceedingly valuable tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can use this tool to teh best of its ability, you need to understand how to interpret the data you are given.

Many of the web hosting compaines you use prived basic web traffic informaion. Though you can interpret that information and make pertinent use of it, it can be an information overload if you don't know how to apply it to your particular business and website. First let's examine the most basic data - the average number of people who visit your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

These numbers are the best and most exact measure of your website's activity. Sometimes people think that the more traffic you see listed in those figures, the better you can assume your website is doing. But this is an inaccurate picture of webstie traffic. It is also important to look at the behavior of your visitors once they have come to your website. This is the best way to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site.

Also, there is often a great misconception between what is commonly known as "hits" and what is really effective and top quality traffic to your site. "Hits" simply means the number of information requests received by the server. Therefore, a hit can really only equal the number of graphics per page. This creates the idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in actuallity we are talking about simply one single visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.

So eventually, the more visitors that come to your website, the more accurate your interpretation of website traffic will become. In other words, the more traffic you get to your website, the more exact your analysis will be of overall drifts in visitor behavior. And consequently, the smaller the number of visitors, the easier it is for a few irregular visitors to incorrectly twist the overall analysis.

The goal of analyzing website traffic statistics is to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for its visitors. One way to establish this is to find out how much time, on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time spent is moderately brief, it usually indicates an underlying problem. Then the problem is to figure out what that problem is.

So if guests are spending a limited amount of time on your site, it could be that your keywords are directing the inaccurate type of visitors to your website, or it could mean that your graphics are not clear or frightening. This often causes the visitor to exit rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint what these specific problems may be. Then once you have fixed those problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.

Additionally, web traffic statistical numbers can help you determine which areas of your website are either effective or ineffective. If you have a page that you think is important, but visitors are leaving it rapidly, then that page needs your attention. You could, for example, try improving the link to this page by creating a link that is more noticeable and enticing, or you could improve the overall look of the page or the ease that your visitors can access the necessary information on that page.

If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are spending a lot of time on certain pages that you deem less important, you may want to move some of your sales copy and marketing focus to that particular page. This way the more important information that you want visitors to see will be looked at more often on your most popular pages.

Another important topic to address is exit pages. Your website probably has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to exit really quickly. However,, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking for, so statistical web traffic numbers can show you a number of your different exit pages. This is not unusual unless you can see an exit trend on a particular page that was not intended as an exit page. In the case that a significant percentage of your visitors are exiting the website on a page not originally designed for that purpose, you need to closely examine that particular page and figure out what the problem is. Once you have figured out exactly what the potential weaknesses are for that page, small but important changes in content or graphic can have a large impact on keeping visitors moving throughout your site rather than exiting at the incorrect page.

Once you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it's time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Find out if particular keywords are sending a unique type of visitor to your site. The more specific the visitor, the more valuable that keyword is. The best targeted visitor will find what they are looking for on your site, fill out your contact form or make a purchase.

However, at the same time, it's possible for a large number of visitors to be directed - or should I say misdirected - to your site because of a particular keyword or phrase. This means that the keyword needs to be altered. Keywords are vital to bringing the best quality visitors to your site who are ready and willing to do business with you. Close analysis of keywords will give you a really important understanding of your visitor's needs and motivations.

Finally, if you can see that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, break open the champagne! This means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success!


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bob Schwartz, is the founder of Promotions Unlimited,an Internet legal directory (CA, TX & Las Vegas ) publisher and search engine placement technology analyst.  You can contact Bob via e-mail at  seo711@gmail.com or visit his San Diego legal directory at:  http://www.sandiegolawyerforyou.com/special.htm