You need to get permission from visitor to get that information. It can't be done with any tracking tools available. There is a very good reason for this and it's called privacy. If you or I went online and could have our names, addresses and phone numbers tracked by software it could be potentially dangerous. Imagine if you were online and were talking on a chat room about going on your holidays in a far away land for next few weeks and your personal information could be gathered. The person who sees that information then knows when to go to your address and rob you while you're away. It's ok to track browser behavior because no personal details are ever tracked. I for one hope it stays that way.

Question 5. What should one look for in web logs to determine conversion rates?

Web log files are a problem because they record everything. Web logs record every request to your sites pages from search engine indexes, to email harvester software, link harvesters and visitors. So you need to filter information out from log files which isn't relevant to visitors first. Then you're looking for unique visitors (not visits) or unique sites. Once you have that filtered figure you have approximate amount of visitors coming to your site, still not close to 100% because of proxy servers recording multiple visitors as one browser, but it's as close as you can get with log files. Then you divide amount of people who complete conversion action by total visitors. That is your conversion rate. If you can get software which doesn't use logs like IRIS Metrics or log software which works out filtering like Web Trends it makes your job much easier.

Question 6. What factors have biggest impact on conversions on my web site?

The short answer is differentiation, target marketing, your sites relevance to your desired audience, measurement, experimentation and most importantly trust. Differentiation is first step in process. You must find a way to stand out from competition. It should start with domain name, and continue throughout your entire websites strategy. Then in your content, your copy and your design you must smack your target audience between eyes. You have to find out exactly what it is they want and answer wants and needs of that audience. Relevance is hugely important also, if you're running a campaign on Overture or Google with certain keywords your audience should land at exactly right place after typing those keywords and finding your website. So if audience types "Red Vintage Wine" into Overture and your link appears, on clicking through they should be taken to page on your site talking all about and selling red vintage wine. They shouldn't land at home page of your website which has a small link to red vintage wine section and 5 or 6 other types of wine for sale. Measuring and experimenting is then key to improving conversion rates. You can't improve conversion without measurement unless you're making educated guesses or you're just plain lucky. So get a good measurement system, learn what it's all about and test your changes. Finally and most importantly trust. You can't sell anything if your audience doesn't trust you. You can help them to trust you by prominently displaying your privacy policy, your shipping procedure, fact that you use SSL encrypted protection for forms on your site, that hundreds of satisfied customers have already bought from your store, that you make it very easy to find contact information such as a name and address as well as support via email. You could educate via your website with articles and ‘how to sections' or newsletters and instill trust over time. In short your prospect must trust you to part with his or her money.

What's next?

In part two of this series we'll be looking at measurement software tools, pros and cons of logs versus ASP vendors, average conversion rates, why it helps to track visitor activity using software which is available and what you should test and tweak to improve conversion rates

We mentally beat ourselves down by listening to those constantly recycling tapes. Our spirits sink, our energy evaporates, and our self-esteem plummets. This negativity, and its destructive effect on our psyche, can be contained by three techniques:

1. Awareness of what our mind is doing and consciously interrupting its tirade.

2. A refocus of our mental attention to prior successes and accomplishments, no matter how small, to counter idea that we are lifelong screw-ups.

3. Reframing our value as a person from specific employee/worker role into total personality that we are: in our intimate and social relationships, in our family, in our community.

Applying for work sets us up to judged but we need to remind ourselves that only a small discrete portion of who we are is being examined. As a whole person, we are far more than a worker and no employer can judge us on our totality.