by Stephen Dow – NetSpeak Solutions Web Site Design and Marketing
Everyone wants their site to receive lots of visitor traffic. Without it, a website has little value. However, since most people don’t even know how to analyze visitor traffic, what can be done. First off, some keyword research can be accomplished by establishing a “pay-per-click” (PPC) ad campaign. However, this approach involves a lot of time, money and effort, and can only pull in a maximum of approximately 25% of the active searchers found on a search engine results page. But it still won’t provide you with important site usage information that could increase the appearance of PPC ads on search results pages. Your ad may not show up at all if you chose keywords that don’t relate to site page content (or lack thereof).
Nevertheless, even if you have some ads that relate to page content and “appear”, you are not solving the real problem; which is how your website content and/or other factors are affecting ranking and traffic. You still need a more complete understanding of site usage in order to begin to optimize your site and the traffic it is capable of pulling in.
The way you do this is to learn about your site visitors (and more) through the log files stored on your hosting server. Fortunately, most hosting companies provide some type of software that processes your log file data into a format that can easily be read. With this information in hand, a webmaster or site owner can begin to gain a more complete understanding of the number of people visiting the site, where they are coming from, their entry and exit pages, the average number of pages they view per visit, as well as other data.
All of this will enable you or an Internet marketing professional to better analyze the effectiveness of the design, structure and content of your site. This is also the beginning of how you ultimately work to drive up your natural search rankings (ideally to within the top 10) – since this where 75% of the traffic to any site comes from. NOTE: This can be a very tedious and time-consuming process. It can also involve coding. That’s why many opt for professional help.
Important Category Terminology Explained
When you look through your website log analysis program, the first term you need to purge from your head is “hits”. Why? Well, many people are so impressed at how large this value is (compared to the values in other categories) that they feel they’ve reached nirvana. Unfortunately, “hits” do not accurately describe visitor site viewing at all.
“Hits” are nothing more than ANY HTTP request made to your server for a variety of website-related content on the server. Requests for content are made not just for pages, but for images and other items associated with the make-up of your web site. In addition, many “hits” are also a result of the many search engines that crawl your site to analyze and store its contents and linking structure (for ranking). And they certainly aren’t going to view your site like a typical user – because their visits are directed by programmed actions (specific “mission” parameters of their own).
So you should concentrate on studying the category called “unique visits” (also called “unique page views” or “page views”). This category provides solid information generated by each unique user. The user information generated is based on the IP address of the user’s computer, which is a constant value regardless of the browser or the operating system in use. In this way, no matter how many “hits” a given visitor registers while on your site, the server will record his/her session as “one unique visit” and record “how” he/she has looked over your site (in total time, total pages visited, which pages were visited, and also which pages they used to enter and exit from). Thus, “unique page views” gives a better idea of both the amount of “real” traffic as well as how the site is being navigated for information (or again, any lack thereof).
More Information on Web Traffic Categories
1. Unique Visits:
You should be looking for a trend in the average number of unique visits on a day-to-day basis and eventually on a week-to-week and then monthly basis. There might be a good deal of volatility in the number of unique visitor over time (especially with newly launched or re-designed sites), but you should pay particular attention to the trend of the average number of visitors per month as volatility decreases. Optimally, you want to have these numbers increase month by month.
2. Entry Page Data:
Based on this information, you can learn which page(s) are the main entry point(s) to your website. You’ll likely find that most visits begin from the home page. But, at some point, you should notice that traffic originates from or more pages other than the home page. If this isn’t the case over time, then it may be that your web site doesn’t have an optimum navigation structure, or, the information that a user is trying to look for just isn’t there.
3. Bounce Rate Data:
Bounce rate is typically defined as the percentage of people who visit your website and immediately leave. You shouldn’t get worried if you have a bounce rate near 50%. Most web sites have numbers in this range. But, if the bounce rate is higher, try experimenting to find a means to retain visitors. For example, it might be that you need more graphics on the main entry page(s), slightly less text (be careful here), faster loading pages, and/or a more engaging color scheme in your design – etc.
4. Exit Page Statistics:
This information category shows you from what page people leave a web site. Knowing which page is losing most site visitors my show nothing more than the end of their visit, or, it can indicate that they couldn’t find what they were looking for on the site. As was mentioned before, you can experiment with some changes in page content (or add pages) to see if your visitors remain on your site longer and/or leave from some other page.
5. Average Visit Time & Page Views Per Visit:
Web visitors are “typically” goal oriented. When visiting a web site, most will merely scan a page quickly – to determine whether it contains any information they may seeking as relevant. By analyzing the average amount of time spent on your website and the average number of page views per visit, you can determine how engaging your site content is. The key to retaining visitors and increasing the number of page views is to have relevant and interesting information. Content is king!
6. Top Referring URLs:
This data lets you know where the bulk of your website’s traffic is coming from. This is important if you’re pursuing a website marketing campaign or search engine optimization campaign because you can easily judge the campaign’s effectiveness by looking to see how many visitors each marketing method is generating.
7. Top Search Words/Phrases:
This information let’s you know which keyword phrases visitors are using in Google and the other search engines in order to find your web site. With this information, you can gauge the effectiveness of your search engine rank based on those keywords and the related page content. You can also get an idea of how keyword density within content pages might be altered to position yourself for higher natural rankings (but more variables apply to do this correctly). For other keyword phrases you wish to rank on, you have to develop content/pages that include such phrases – but it’s not as simple as it sounds to do.
8. Browsers, Platforms & Screen Sizes:
This information gives us some insight as to the type of software and hardware your visitors are using. It’s important to design your website to look the same across all browsers and operating systems (cell phones are a killer though). In addition, pay close attention to the screen size and resolution settings being used by your visitors to view your site. The goal here is to ensure that no has to resort to using the horizontal scroll bar to view a website that’s too wide.
9. Geographic Dispersion/Country of Origin:
A good server log program will let you know the geographic region percentages of site visitors. This is important if your website only has appeal in a particular region. For example, if you own a retail store that sells shoes within the United States and you find that 78% of all website traffic has been coming from Asia, then it’s easy to see you need to re-think your marketing strategy.
Goals of Web Usage Statistics for Visitor Traffic
By gathering even basic information on how your site is being used by visitors, you can begin to see if you have major problems with your site. From here, you can try to come up with possible solutions yourself, or hire a professional to do it for you. Problems with sites often arise because of a poor visual appearance, a confusing navigational structure, lack of desired content (or poorly provided content) as well as relationship issues between content and specific keywords.
To remedy big problems, it’s usually best to make only minor adjustments, and then assess progress over a month or so, to more fully understand if what was changed made any impact. Also, remember that sites with a greater number of visitors will have more accurate web statistics, while sites with smaller numbers are more prone to have averages that fluctuate due to a few anomalous visits. In many cases though, you may need professional assistance in order to properly assess and improve traffic flow to your web site.