Mining for Gold . . . in your Web Traffic Logs

Written by Philippa Gamse


Continued from page 1

Ifrepparttar home page does a good job of this, there will probably be some remnant of visitors who came to your site by mistake, in which case they will leave immediately. But that's OK - they aren'trepparttar 133619 right traffic for you.

It's really your judgment call as to what constitutes a problem. But, that client I mentioned earlier whose visitors spent less than two minutes on his site also had about 85% single access figures on his home page - some things are obvious!

A splash entry page to your site (i.e. one that says "Welcome, enter here", but with little or no actual content) will often also show large single access figures. Although these pages can look very striking, they unfortunately tend to be unpopular with impatient surfers. I've seen splash pages that have lost one third of a site's visitors. If you have a splash page, checkrepparttar 133620 single access figures for it in your logs, and be prepared to remove it without hurtingrepparttar 133621 feelings of your Webmaster!

Most Active Countries and Cities

If your site is aimed at an international audience, this section will show which country visitors originate from. This information can be useful in making decisions such as providing pages in languages other than English.

The most active cities report is unfortunately very misleading, as it relies onrepparttar 133622 registered location ofrepparttar 133623 Internet Service Provider. Most log reports therefore show very disproportionate visitor numbers from Virginia -repparttar 133624 home of America Online!

Top Referring Sites / URL's / Search Engines

These arerepparttar 133625 Web pages that send visitors to your site. The largest figure here will usually berepparttar 133626 "No referrer", showing people coming directly torepparttar 133627 site. This means that they are typing in your URL, or have your site bookmarked, and implies that your other forms of marketing are working.

The log reporting program should display other Web pages that send you traffic as html links, allowing you to click onrepparttar 133628 URL (when online!) to seerepparttar 133629 originating page. This will showrepparttar 133630 effectiveness of your reciprocal links or paid advertising. You will also be able to see other sites that are linking to you. It's worth checking these out if you aren't familiar with them - either to thank them, or to check that their link to you is appropriate.

For search engine referrals, clicking onrepparttar 133631 link will resubmitrepparttar 133632 search, and allow you to evaluate competitors' sites and positioning relative to yours. It's also possible to review keywords that are bringing traffic from one particular source, and to try to improverepparttar 133633 site's performance for those words in other search engines.

Top Search Keywords and Phrases

This is crucial information, as it shows exactly what people were looking for when they came to your site. Often Web site marketers take their best guess at these keywords on their first design, but becauserepparttar 133634 search engines index every word on all your pages, other terms can be found, especially in a content rich site.

Sorepparttar 133635 most popular search phrases can tell you what's really "hot" in your products and services. Understanding these is another great key to understandingrepparttar 133636 current needs of your site's market(s), and making business strategy and development decisions. One of my clients recently decided to write a book on a topic area that, until she saw her logs, she had no idea was so sought-after.

Conclusion

There are other sections inrepparttar 133637 log report, especially aroundrepparttar 133638 technical data for your site. The pieces that I have covered here arerepparttar 133639 significant ones for marketers. If you don't have this information available, I really urge you to get it, and review it - I guarantee that you'll find some gold nuggets!

Philippa Gamse, CyberSpeaker, is an internationally recognized e-business strategist. Check out her free tipsheet "Beyond the Search Engines" for 17 ideas to promote your Website: http://www.CyberSpeaker.com/tipsheet.html Philippa can be reached at (831) 465-0317 or mailto:pgamse@CyberSpeaker.com


Using Ad Tracking Tools

Written by Pamela Heywood


Continued from page 1

=> linkcounter.com is generic -- it doesn't identify your program so there is an element of "surprise" that will help you getrepparttar click. People don't click if they think they've seen it before.

=> It's cheat-proof. It is still a URL with a number onrepparttar 133618 end, but if anyone tries to takerepparttar 133619 numbers off this, they'll just get an error or go to linkcounter. If they knockrepparttar 133620 numbers or reference off your affiliate URL, then they may still end up atrepparttar 133621 program, but you won't earnrepparttar 133622 commission.

=> You will find out if anyone actually IS clicking!

Track a whole ad campaign

If you use different linkcounter links, forrepparttar 133623 same URL, but with different ads or forrepparttar 133624 same ads in different ezines, (give each one or "campaign" a title that you'll remember), you'll find out which ones work best so you know where to advertise again or if you should maybe "tweak" your ads for better results.

You can also use this on your website, but you don't need to have one to use it. You can also enter an amount, say if you are in a program that pays you 10 cents per click and it will add them up so you can double-check this against your commission check.

This doesn't mean you should NOT get your own website, domain and home onrepparttar 133625 web. If you have that already, then you can use this to see how many people are clicking away to certain links within your site, both internal or external. Your log files should tell you where people go internally, but if you don't have them, here's an alternative. Your log files don't send you email each day as this does!

You'll also find a similar concept at: http://www.roibot.com/

Or you can do your own ad tracking. Atrepparttar 133626 most simple, give each campaign it's own page with a (preferably invisible) counter on.

If you do have access to log files on your site, "key" your URLs with references of your choice so you can countrepparttar 133627 responses to each. Or set up different redirect pages for each ad to see which ones get hits. You can getrepparttar 133628 code for a redirect page, here: http://www.tucats-design.com/eacz/code.html

Just don't leave it to chance, or you'll spend more time chasing your own tail than actually making progress or PROFIT.



Pamela Heywood is webmistress of http://www.tucats-design.com - Building Your Online Business Instinctively. Subscribe to the weekly TuCats Mewsletter (sic) mailto:subscribe@tucats-design.com and get regular FREE hints, tips, articles and resources.


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