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Back to Bhopu ArchivePosted On Sep 06, 2007
Know your visitors through website traffic analysis
in Website Traffic Analysis Let’s say that you built a great looking website. Now that you're headed in the right direction, it's time to drum up some business for your online storefront and analyze your website traffic. We all know that both art and science are involved when it comes to driving traffic to your website, so here's a look at some tools and tips to help you do it successfully.

How many users come to your website? As more customers turn to the web to find information, many businesses are discovering the advantages of having a website.

Before we talk about analyzing your website traffic further, evaluate your current Web site:

Assess how people use your site

In order to learn how visitors and how many of them use your site, it helps to know what questions to ask, and where to find the answers.


The log file (think of it as a guest book) can usually tell you the number of visitors. But accuracy varies, depending on the software you use.

How do people find my site?
The referrer file tracks the origin of each user who comes to the site. It reveals which sites sent you the most traffic, and how many users find you on their own (without following a link from another site).

Where do people enter my site?
Most traffic-analysis software can issue a Top Entry Pages report.

What parts of my site do people use?
The log file keeps a running list of each page served from your site. Most traffic-analysis software will issue a Most Visited Pages report. And many will let you view page views by section.
   
How long do visitors stay on my site?
If your site is application-based--and requires users to log in--you should have a log file that captures the length of each user session, in minutes. If your site (like most sites) doesn't require a log in, you'll have to estimate the length of visits by the number of pages each visitor viewed.

How often do visitors return to my site?
Again, if you have a site that requires users to log in, the log file should reveal great detail about repeat visits. Other sites can track repeat visitors by setting cookies but this method is less precise.
   
Where do people leave my site?
Most traffic-analysis software can issue a Top Exit Pages report.

Where do people click? And why?
A click through report (available through some reporting systems) can track the number of people who click on any given link. Experimentation will tell you what factor (wording vs. color vs. placement) inspired the click. No one can exactly tell you why.

Who should I ask about this?
If you work for a large company that manages its own web servers, ask your system administrator what logs or reports are available. Otherwise, your hosting service should provide them. If your hosting service doesn't provide any traffic-measurement utilities, consider switching!

Know Your Traffic Language

You should be aware of the different terms used to describe web site traffic, so as not to be confused about your web site visitors. Here are the main terms used:

Visit – these are all requests made by a specific user to the site during a set period of time. The visit is ended if a set period of time (say 30 minutes) goes by with no further accesses. Users are identified by cookies, username or hostnames/IP addresses

Hit – this is a request to the server for a file not a page. Your page can be made up of different files, such as graphicmfiles, audio files or CSS and Javascript files, resulting in a number of hits for that page. Each of these requests is called a hit.

Counting hits is not the same as tracking pageviews. It takes multiple hits to view a page.

Pageview/Impression – this is the number of times a page is accessed as a whole.

Unique View - A page view by a unique person within a 24 hour period.

Referrer - A page that links to your site. By looking at your referrers will tell you who's linked to your site. This can be particularly valuable for seeing where your search engine traffic is coming from.

User Agent - This refers to the software used to access your site. Sometimes known as a "browser" or "client", the term user agent can describe a PHP script, a browser like Internet Explorer, or a search engine spider like GoogleBot. If you can identify what software is being used to access your site, you'll be able to tell if users are abusing it, and when the search engines last crawled your pages.

Where are your users coming from?

Lets visit some very basic concepts here for a minute. A traffic advantage comes from being able to meet required information of your target user better than your competitors can. There are two basic ways to ensure you have a competitive advantage. One is to adjust your service to meet the needs of your target users and the other is to change your target users so that your service meets their needs.
 
From there, you have to make sure that your site and content reach the target users that you are trying to attract.

That sounds simple enough, but the backbone of the process is information. You have to know where your traffic is coming from and how much of that traffic is useful.

That’s why it’s so critical to be able to analyze the traffic and present situation to streamline your traffic. Your company should be able to track the keywords that send you target traffic.

The traffic system put onto your website should let you know which of your pages are viewed the most and whether there’s a certain page that seems to be driving visitors away. You should be able to tell how much time visitors spend on your site. The website statistics are exceptional resources that make sound analysis of your site possible.

Strategies that helps you know your users

Get accurate and real time information on your site traffic, from page views to unique visitors. Use some statistics in your strategy
 
Know your web site traffic. Get detailed information on your visitor demographics, such as their physical location (city/state/country) as well as their browser and computer types. Identify the most popular pages on your website and improve the content on the least popular pages. Spot potential dead-end pages by tracking exit pages (where visitors leave your website). Watch your visitor navigation through your website, observe the actual path they take as they click their way around your website.

Know your partners and affiliates. Track other websites who link to you and expand relationships with them. Ensure external links are bringing visitors to appropriate pages on your website, easily identify any external site that is sending traffic to outdated or obsolete pages.

Know your place on the search engines. Monitor traffic from search engines as well as the keywords that bring visitors to your website. Identify keywords that are not drawing as much traffic, and optimize your website and content to improve results.

Know your ROI from advertising. A successful advertising campaign must generate a high ROI (Return On Investment). By using specific landing pages for each advertising (or keyword bidding) campaign, you can easily track results for each visitor that clicked through. Observe their actual path through your website, and determine if they made a purchase (or found what they were looking for).

Simple to implement. Simply add a few lines of HTML code to your website pages, and your web site traffic metrics will immediately start being recorded.

Let your users see the real you

More genuine communication with users means better connections with them, which means more repeat traffic and more referral traffic. This isn’t a manipulative game. The traffic benefits are a positive side effect.

The blog above isn’t based on tricks or techniques that will go out of style.  It’s mainly about providing genuine value and letting word of mouth do the rest.  

If you align yourself with serving the best information to users, you’ll receive plenty of help along the way.

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Tag : Website traffic, Website evaluation