Website Monitoring And Tracking

In this addition we will discuss the importance of web site
tracking and explain to you why it is so important to pay
attention your current web traffic.

Understanding what your visitors do on your site is crucial
information, not to mention interesting. If your visitors
proceed to purchase a product but then a large majority
leave the site when they get to a specific page in the order
process then you need to know about it. It could be that
this page is confusing or hard to use. Fixing it could
increase your sales by 200%. This is just an example; there
are many reasons why you want a detailed analysis of your
site visitors.

Most website hosting services offer a stats package that you
can study. If you're not sure where this is, call up your
hosting service and ask them. Statistics are a vital part of
tracking your marketing progress. If you don't have access
to website statistics get a package that can help you in
this area. Do not get a counter that just shows how many
visitors you've had. You'll be missing out on vital
information that can help strengthen weaknesses in your
site.

A good website hosting service would offer traffic logs that
provide an invaluable insight into the traffic being
referred to a web site from various sources such as search
engines, directories and other links.

Unfortunately traffic tracking provided by web hosting
services is often in the form of raw traffic log files or
other difficult to understand cryptic formats. These log
files are basically text files that describe actions on the
site. It is literally impossible to use the raw log files to
understand what your visitors are doing. If you do not have
the patience to go through these huge traffic logs, opting
for a traffic-logging package would be a good idea.

Basically two options are available to you and these are:
using a log analysis package or subscribing to a remotely
hosted traffic logging service. A remotely hosted traffic
logging service may be easy to use and is generally the
cheaper option of the two. WebTrends Live and HitsLink are
two good, remotely hosted, traffic-monitoring services worth
considering. However, WebTrends Live is a more complicated
system and is suitable for larger ecommerce websites.
“SuperStats” is another recommended traffic logging service.

These services do not use your log files. Typically a small
section of code is placed on any page you want to track.
When the page is viewed, information is stored on the remote
server and available in real time to view in charts and
tables form.

Log analysis packages are typically expensive to buy and
complex to set up. Apart from commercial packages there are
also some free log analysis packages available, such as
Analog.

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A good traffic logging service would provide statistics
pertaining to the following:
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* How many people visit your site?
* Where are they from?
* How are visitors finding your site?
* What traffic is coming from search engines, links from
other sites, and other sources?
* What keyword search phrases are they using to find your
site?
* What pages are frequented the most - what information are
visitors most interested in?
* How do visitors navigate within your web site?

Knowing the answers to these and other fundamental questions
is essential for making informed decisions that maximize the
return on investment (ROI) of your web site investment.

The most important aspect of tracking visitors to your
website is analyzing all the statistics you get from your
tracking software. The three main statistics that will show
your overall progress are hits, visitors and page views.
Hits are tracked when any picture or page loads from your
server on to a visitor’s browser. Hits, however, can be very
misleading. It is quite an irrelevant statistic for your
website.

The statistic that is probably the most important for a
website is Page Views/Visitors. This gives you a good
indication of two things. First, how many people are coming
to your site, and secondly how long are they staying on your
site. If you have 250 visitors and 300 page views you can
figure that most visitors view one page on your site and
then leave. Generally, if you're not getting 2 page views
per visitor then you should consider upgrading your site's
content so your visitors will stay around longer.
If you see the number of visitors you have increasing as
well as the number of page views per visitor increasing then
keep up the good work! Always look for this stat as an
overall barometer of how your site design is going and if
your marketing campaigns are taking hold.
Also, a good stat to look for is unique visitors. Once a
person visits your site they will not be added to the unique
visitors’ category if they visit again. This is a good way
to track new visitors to your website.
Page views are a good indication of how "sticky" your
website is. A good statistic to keep is Page Views divided
by the number of Visitors you have. This statistic will give
you a good idea if your content is interesting and if your
visitors are staying on your site for a long time and
surfing.

Some people are intimidated by web traffic statistics
(mostly because of the sheer volume of data available), but
they shouldn't be. While there are many highly specialized
statistics that can be used for more in-depth web traffic
analysis, the above areas alone can provide invaluable
information on your visitors and your website performance.
Remember- this data is available for a reason. It's up to
you to use it.


Warmly,

Rob Jean
http://www.OnlineCashmaker.com