Tracking the statistical performance of your website is essential to understanding just what it really is doing for you. You can find third party options ranging from very expensive to moderate and even a few reasonably good free ones out there too. The more expensive ones are typically ran from their servers and the free ones from your own. Typically a little script snippet has to be manually installed on every page you want to track. I provide real time analytics with WebStats. I send my support clients a secure private link so they can view their stats 24/7 at their convenience. We can also easily phone conference together in the program with real time live statistics vs outdated static pdf or spreadsheet reporting. You can find out more about this easy to use powerful software program in my support section.
Some common areas that website statistics will help you track and review are:
Traffic sources From organic top 3 search engine referrals to links you have on other websites or special programs that you may be running with marketing services and email programs, this stat helps you identify what source is sending viewers to your website.
Visits • new visits and returning visits These stats help you get a good picture of how many new viewers are visiting your site versus returning viewers who may be your regular site users, clients and customers.
Originating GEO identifiers These stats show you where your viewers are coming from in the world. You typically will be able to identify the city, state and country of origin. This gives you a good idea of your reach and if you are pulling from your target GEO markets and or other areas of the world wide web.
Time on site / time on page This one has essential importance as it statistically reveals if your viewers are staying around and using your site. It should be reviewed and compared to the bounce rate explained below.
Page views This stat gives you a great view of the level of interest in your site and how well it was designed and constructed. Higher levels typically show higher interest while lower levels show disinterest or possible missing content they were seeking or would have viewed if present on your site. Typically sites with higher page views, higher time on site (ie = low bounce rates) would be considered better sites to return in the top 10 organic search results.
Top Content • top entry page and top exit page Knowing what content is bringing your viewers to your site, what content is being viewed the most and what pages they are leaving your site from is very important in determining how well your site is working in real life.
Some areas to be concerned about with your exit pages are: Are you sending your viewers away to some other site where they do not come back to yours? Did you break the chain of - relevant unique content to "call to action" to conversion ? Are you failing in the conversion process due to an ineffective "call to action" message?
There is so much that can be subjectively and statistically discussed, discovered and tweaked out in this area of your website that I could probably write a short book about it so it's best to contact me direct to discuss your reports and site content first hand.
Bounce Rate This stat is essential to determining the overall targeting of your site. High bounce rate = not good, missing the mark on content, your keywords target markets or possibly a poorly defined site message or website design for the target group. Low bounce rate = good!
Conversion This is the fancy term used in the statistics industry to convey the process of turning hits and clicks to your site into some form of intended and measurable behavior. That behavior could be as simple as completing a survey, a newsletter sign up, an inquiry web form, calling your business or placing an order. This is the bottom line. This is what most every area of your site should help move your viewers to. All your statistics are designed to help you get an accurate view of how your site is performing with this goal in mind.
Keywords This is one of the most useful organic stats in the report as it identifies the words that real people have entered into a search engine and then found your site by. At first look over you will probably be amazed how different organic returns are in real life as compared to the "keyword" concepts and maybe myth's many seo services may typically promote. Real people type in just about anything on their minds at the time. They often misspell words or use non industry specific words. They will add words based on their regional, family or personal vocabulary, their own perceptions of what they think the words should be. They may also add non essential descriptors or what are called "stop words" (ie words the search engines do not index). Of course, you will certainly want to be sure you covered all your standard industry specific keywords in your content on your site, however, you most definitely will then want to find out how real people are finding you and if possible how they are finding your top competitors websites.
This stat will give you your websites actual data to review and tweak out your real life keyword tracking. If you see viewers are coming in on certain keywords and immediately leaving (ie = high bounce rate percent) then you can look at that page and content to determine what you are lacking to keep them on your site. You may have missed the mark completely for what they were looking for and so determining that and then adjusting your content and message may help. If you see they are coming in on many different groups of keywords and staying and moving around your site to other pages, you are informed that your site content was meaningful to their search, interesting enough to them to pull them into the other pages and content of your site.
