Visitor Traffic Statistics 101, or, The Who, What, When, Where, Why & How of Web Analytics

As we all know, visitor traffic is crucial to the success of every Website. If you do not know how many views your pages get, how can you know if anyone is seeing your site, product or service? With an online business, you can not afford to guess at how effective your marketing, content, message or website design is.

Ideally, you need to know what pages are viewed, how long the visitor stays on any given page and what page they click to next. Also, if you can see the keywords they used to search for you, or see what link they clicked to get to your site (referral link), you have great information for SEO (search engine optimization) of your site content and keywords. This is all part of Web analytics. The more you know about site analytics, the better prepared you will be to get the most out of your site traffic and visitor usage. Read through these basics and you will be ready to go look for an effective visitor traffic reporting service, find the best features for the price, and boost your site's effectiveness.

Who are your visitors?

You spend many hours identifying your target market. Through SEO, you spend even more time, and often money, to focus your keywords, search indexing and content for this market. You devote yourself to find the optimal visitors by geography, interest, demographics and other important criteria, all for one purpose ... to get the attention of potential customers or clients.

Once you know your target market, you need to know if your efforts are effective. You do that by tracking your site visitor statistics. Web analytics analyze your site traffic and break down the data into usable information reports. Visitor stats you need for the best tracking include how many total visits ("hits" on your site pages, which means the total number of views by everyone who visits your site), unique page views (views of any given page by the same visitor), and geographic location of your unique visitors. The advantage of geographic location is that you can monitor where your visitors are coming from. For instance, DogWidgets.com (note: fictional company) began by selling to one region in the US but was getting traffic from Canada and Germany. Owner saw that marketing focus was needed for a more specific geographic area.

What are your visitors searching for?

This area of analytics is a terrific opportunity for SEO and refinement of your keyword strategies. With a good tracking service, you will be able to get a report on search engine keyword usage and clickstream (click path) data. In other words, the report will show a breakdown of the keywords your visitors used to find you as well as the search engine they used. This information is invaluable as it spells out exactly what your visitors are looking for, how effective your keywords are, and lets you know what search engines have you listed. If your chosen service provides it, you can click the report link to see what your page rank is for that engine, in real-time. A good analytics site will also provide the clickstream data, which will show you the path your visitor's took inside your site, from page to page. This data is invaluable for marketing your site and product or service. To demonstrate, the owner of DogWidget.com has been trying to decide what areas to focus on. Owner's dog widgets have a wide variety of applications, and Owner sees through the keyword report that the search terms are all over the spectrum. There is no focus. This tells Owner that a marketing strategy is needed to grab visitors that want specific dog widgets.

When do they visit my site?

You will also want to monitor your peak traffic hours. This is very easy with a good analytics report. The more detail your reports show, the more information you have to work with. You should be able to have the data on your site visits broken down by year, month, week, day and hour. This is important information, but you really need more than just "visitor totals." You should look for this time breakdown by page views (total views of every page on your site) and by unique visitors (pages viewed by each individual visitor). To show the importance, let's consider our dog widget site scenario:

DogWidget.com sells a variety of multi-colored widgets for dogs. Owner notices through tracking reports that there is a much higher page view of the Outdoor widgets on Friday mornings. The Outdoor page seems to compel the highest number of clicks to the order page. No one clicks from the Rainy Day widgets page to the order page. So now Owner has the information to rethink the Rainy Day page, and to begin focusing more advertising to Outdoor topics, advertisers and markets.

Where are visitors coming from?

When you begin marketing your site, whether it is banner and link exchanges, classified ads, posting articles, press releases or pay per click advertising, you need to know what is working for you and what is wasting your time. Referral link reports help narrow this down and allow you to see what active links on the Internet are being used to bring site visitors.

For instance, let's see how our enthusiastic and dedicated dog widget owner has been advertising. Being on a shoestring, Owner decided to try SEO and send out weekly press releases. DogWidget.com has been indexed by several major search engines, keywords have been refined thanks to the keyword usage reports. Using the referral reports Owner sees that the SEO is beginning to roll along nicely and is even picking up a little momentum.

Now for the press releases. Owner sends out a new press release each week for two months. Without the referral link report, Owner would be in the dark as to whether the links on the releases were being used, unless it was a paid distribution service (and that info is only for one release on that one site).

With the referral report, Owner was able to send out press releases at no cost, and see what sites picked them up and posted them through the clicks on the contact links. So the press release about Vacation dog widgets got a lot of attention, excellent. That was time well spent. So now, Owner focus can shift so efforts are optimized.

Why is all this so important?

I must answer this question with a question: do you know how your site has been doing? If you do not have reports to give you the real-time traffic information necessary to gauge visitor performance, how can you know how your site is really doing? Are you thinking some decent sales is doing well?

Or because you get nice feedback, the site is ok? If this is the case, you are settling for inferior results. This is not a solid way to manage any business, and a Website is business. Why would you want to settle for "ok" when you can get the tools at little expense that can make your site soar? Our Owner wanted to quit the "day job" and make a real living from DogWidgets.com, and with diligence and Web analytics, there is a good chance Owner will succeed, and make a lot of dogs happy at the same time! Please don't settle for "ok." Take your site to the next level. All it takes is having the right information to work with. To paraphrase an old idiom, Visitor Knowledge is Site Success.

How do they use my Website?

Your visitors are valuable. The visitors that buy your product or service are priceless; they are the key element to success. You want to make them happy and keep them coming back. You also want them to spread the word about you. And yes, Web analytics can improve this as well. By knowing how visitors are actually using your site, which pages they visit, how long they view the pages they visit, what pages compel them to continue inside the site (clickstream), and what pages they use to leave your site (exit page) will tell you a great deal. For instance, back to our dog widget site. Owner sees that the Uses for Widgets page seems to hold the visitor longer than other information pages. It was written with humor and has a fun, clean look. Wow, a winner page. However, Rainy Day Widget shows as a big exit page. Not a good page, it appears to kill the site visits. Ok, Owner knows that Rainy Day page needs some redesign and rewriting fast.

Don't let your Website stall like a rainy day widget. As with any business, a Website is needing continual marketing and refinement to stay focused and on target. You need to keep on top of your markets, keep fresh, interesting and compelling content, keep your site available to those who want your product or service. Staying alive on the Web means you need visitors ... visitors who are looking for what you have to offer. With good Web analytics you have the tools you need to put your site in front of your target market, increase your ROI and find success on the Internet. And isn't this why you have a Website?

Cherie' Davidson is content and marketing manager for VisiStat.com. VisiStat is a detailed, real- time site traffic and Web analytics report service that is focused on ease of use and user-friendliness. VisiStat's goal is to help site entrepreneurs make the most of their site marketing and search engine optimization efforts - to be a virtual "goldmine" for marketing. Learn more at http://www.visistat.com or write Cherie' at cherie@visistat.com

---

Why Your Online Advertising Traffic Leaves as Soon as It Arrives

Online advertising traffic leaves when advertisers don't make it... Read More

Why Real Estate Agents Need Their Own Website

It is difficult to for a real estate agent to... Read More

Dont Treat Your Business Like a Casino

It's amazing how many people are jumping into the internet... Read More

Making Your Money Work For You ? And Not The Other Way Around!

Most people spend their entire lives working hard for someone... Read More

Website Sales: Using Direct Response Secret To Get Your Prospects To Buy - Now

I'd like to let you in on a little secret... Read More

Do You Know the 3 Key Strategies to Using Lead Capture Pages?

Leads are the Life Blood of any Online Home Based... Read More

Who You Trust and Who You Dont!

For the last couple weeks I have been running a... Read More

The Naughty Niches: Potential Gold Mines or Business Killers?

Okay, so you're looking for new ways to grow your... Read More

Traditional Mediums versus Search Engine Positioning

Banner Advertising:Paying $15 for a 1000 impressions on a high... Read More

Ways To Outsell Your Competition

Competition is fierce on the Internet. There are a multitude... Read More

Boost Your Sales Copy With One Simple Tweak

Do you want an amazingly simple trick to move far... Read More

Internet Marketing - You Have to Give a Little to Make a Little

Internet marketing by definition is "the use of the Internet... Read More

6 Proven Steps To Internet Marketing Success

There is a misconception that you can come online set... Read More

Researching For Niche Markets

When it comes to researching for niche markets, many people... Read More

There is Hidden a Successful Formula in Everything

Although many say that things change on the net, still... Read More

The Magic Upsell Technique

Just like the infamous thank you page that a buyer... Read More

The Long Sales Letter: Should You Use it In Your Advertising?

If you're a web marketer and you've done your homework,... Read More

Marketing Your Web Site

Congratulations! Your Web Site is finished! Now what? Your first... Read More

Identifying Top- and Bottom-Line Growth Strategies for Your Web Business

Defining Top-Line versus Bottom-LineAn Internet business improves their "top line"... Read More

10 Ways to Exceed Your Clients Expectations Every Time!

The following tips are just a few of the things... Read More

Now, Even A Monkey Could Easily Accept Online Payments

I just came across this web site called PayDotCom.comAfter reviewing... Read More

Website Marketing Secret: Why Your Website Is Not Making Money And How To Turn It Around

The secrets on how to send a floodgate of traffics... Read More

Using An Autoresponder To Manage Your Email Campaigns

Automatic RespondersWhether your e-business is planning to launch an email... Read More

What Not To Do?

As the Internet grows in popularity and importance, the quality... Read More

What the Heck Does Vincent van Gogh Have To Do With Internet Marketing?

Nothing and Everything!Tucked discreetly away on my modest marketing website... Read More

The Center of Your Internet Business, You

As an Internet entrepreneur your ultimate goal is most certainly... Read More

Internet Marketing Solution - Content, Content, Content

If you're looking for the number one, hot Internet marketing... Read More

Do This - and Destroy Your Resale Rights Business!

There's one thing that's sure-fire guaranteed to ruin your profits... Read More

Internet Secrets Revealed - Six Easy Steps to Build a Website to Success

Internet Secrets Revealed! Six Easy steps to build a website... Read More

10-Essential Points When Considering Pop-Under Advertising

I have been running tests on the use of Pop-Unders... Read More

How You Can Tap into the Dramatic Selling Power of Testimonials

Among the variety of techniques available to you as a... Read More

7 Simple Steps To Web Wealth

A lot of people and companies have websites. They also... Read More

One of the Golden Rules of Internet Marketing

In my opinion, one of the 'Golden Rules' of Internet... Read More