Traffic Analysis: Site Statistics - What they should be telling you and probably aren't

Site Statistics - What they should be telling you and probably aren't

Written by Sage Lewis

Site statistics are repparttar

underlying visitor details of your site. They can tell you things like: where a visitor came from, what key phrases people are using to find your site on search engines, how many visitors have come to your site, what pages people looked at repparttar 133622

most, what pages people looked at repparttar 133623

least and even what web browser people used to get to your site. It would seem like that is all repparttar 133624

information anyone would ever need to know about a site. However, virtually all statistical analysis programs are very difficult to understand, and repparttar 133625

data isn't organized in a very useful manner. While there seems like quite a bit of information, there is so much more useful information that is possible to achieve that could give you much more highly telling results.

For example, with repparttar 133626 use of cookies and tying that information into repparttar 133627 raw statistical logs that your server tracks, you suddenly can watch amazing things. For example, you could easily watch one user over any period of days or months as they go and come from your site. You would know exactly what pages they saw and if and when they bought from your site or signed up to your newsletter. Affiliate programs and many online shopping carts are using cookies to keep track of when a person buys something or makes a certain action. However, using them in conjunction with server log statistics seems to be a rarity.

By combining cookies with server logs you would be able to track every single marketing strategy. You would know if your pay per click placements turned browsers into buyers or subscribers. By using different domain names, you would easily be able to track all of your offline promotions from beginning to end. Once a person enters your site you would always know exactly where they came from, when they got there and ultimately if you should continue marketing repparttar 133628 same way you are marketing now, or if you should try something new.

Hansel & Gretel Left a Breadcrumb Trail.....So do Your Website Guests!

Written by Merle

So, who's been visiting your website lately? What do you mean you don't know? How can you tell what's working if you don't have some sort of tracking in place? Measuring website traffic, also known as "stats," is how you know who's visiting your site, where they're coming from, how long they stay, entry and exit pages and more.

You need this information to make informed decisions about your site. You can use it to understand your guests' buying patterns and to measure repparttar effectiveness of your marketing and promotional strategies. It can also be used to show you which areas of your site are repparttar 133621 most popular and repparttar 133622 pages no one seems to visit. You can use this information to redesign your site and play-up repparttar 133623 popular pages while eliminating repparttar 133624 ones no one views.

So how do you get this valuable information? There are a number of ways to collect stats on your website. You can:

1) Purchase Software 2) Use a Free Online Service 3) Use a Paid Online Service/ Third Party Auditors 4) Use your own Web Host

Let's take each option one by one. First in repparttar 133625 group of choices is buying stats software. The problem with this option is repparttar 133626 hefty price tag. Most of repparttar 133627 good ones don't come cheap.

Webtrends.com - http://www.webtrends.com

The leader in stats software, they offer a variety of solutions for everyone from repparttar 133628 small business owner to large corporations. Prepare to shell out some big bucks depending on your needs. Visit repparttar 133629 site and download a trial copy.

Websitereporter.com - http://www.websitereporter.com

Professional website stats software with many options. Website Reporter 3.0 offers a free demo and runs on Unix or NT and only costs between 50 to 75.00. Tracks total hits, maximum hits and date, report traffic, top entry and exit pages and much more.

Fast Stats - http://www.mach5.com/fast/

At only 99.00, this one is in everyone's price range. Tells you who's visiting your site and does it very quickly. Includes a hyperlinked tree view report that graphically shows how visitors are moving through your site. Runs only on Win 95,98, or NT, but can analyze log files generated by Unix servers.

Openwebscope.com - http://www.openwebscope.com

Free to download and 69.00 to register. Easy to read charts and graphs tell you in an instant what visitors are doing on your site. View sample reports at repparttar 133630 site to get a feel for what repparttar 133631 software can do.

Now let's take a look at your options when it comes to free stats. Many sites offer free stats in exchange for placing a small banner or button on your pages. Many of them are really good if you don't mind repparttar 133632 small graphic.

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