I continued my experiment for a week and came to a decisive conclusion. Some search engines are selling our traffic right under our noses! The only time I observed top ranking websites getting regular click through was when keywords are not that competitive to involve ad placement.

This leads me to question quality of traffic one receives from Yahoo and MSN. For every visitor you receive what is ratio for that which you lose to a sponsored result? And what is use of optimizing your website for them?

Now mind you, I enjoy a few good rankings on both Yahoo and MSN but they are for keywords that are not that too competitive. For these I enjoy consistent traffic flow but I think that quality is something to take another look at.

I didn’t write this to bash these guys on how they choose to do their business particularly how they choose to place their ads. My aim is to point out to you that while you may enjoy a top ten result on Yahoo and MSN, chances are you are not getting amount of visitors you should and could receive.

© Oceanroc Web Publishing

Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could, for example, consider improving link to this page by making link more noticeable and enticing, or you could improve look of page or ease that your visitors can access necessary information on that page.

If, on other hand, you notice that visitors are spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less important, you might consider moving some of your sales copy and marketing focus to that particular page.

As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about effectiveness of individual pages, and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.

Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit pages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on a particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In case that a significant percentage of visitors are exiting your website on a page not designed for that purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to discern what problem is. Once you pinpoint potential weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or graphic may have a significant impact on keeping visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at wrong page.

After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it's time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted visitor - meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - more valuable that keyword is.

However, if you find a large number of visitors are being directed - or should I say misdirected - to your site by a particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands adjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitors to your site who are ready to do business with you. Close analysis of keywords your visitors are using to find your site will give you a vital understanding of your visitor's needs and motivations.

Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, break open champagne! It means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.

Brought to by Larry Strawson author of many articles and ebooks on search engine placement.