Web Page Statistics Demystified
Do web page statistics have your head spinning? What's a hit?
How is that different than a request? Is it the same as a
visitor? And how about a unique visitor? Here are some answers.
Read on and you will also find out how to use your web page
statistics effectively in your online marketing plan and web
page design.
A Few Definitions: Hits - This statistic counts each html file
on a page. This includes the actual page a person is looking at
and it counts each picture on a page. If your page has 3
graphics on it; then a visit to that page would generate 4 hits.
Requests - Usually, this is the same thing as a hit. If it is
called a "page request", it would be the same thing as "pages".
This may sound confusing, but people are using different terms
to mean the same thing.
Visitor - This varies, but generally it is one IP visiting your
site in a 30 minute period. If the same visitor comes back after
30 minutes, they will be counted as a visitor again.
Unique Visitor - This is tracked by IP. Each IP is counted only
once.
Page View - This statistic counts the number of pages looked at.
It is not like hits - it does not count graphic images.
Page Request - same as page view
Well, now what? There is a lot of discussion on how accurate
website statistics are. There are so many factors - different
visitors using the same IP or caching of pages. There are some
ISPs that use Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, such as AOL
and cable modem providers, which use different IPs for every
file requested.* This can make one user look like many. Pages
with frames may give distorted statistics as the frame is its
own page, thus increasing the actual number of pages viewed.
Although you cannot take what your statistics say as gospel, you
can learn a lot about your website visitors and your web page
from them. Thus, enabling you to improve your website and to
create a viable marketing and design plan.
Generally, you want to learn more about what percentage of your
visitors are "buying", how people find you, what pages they are
looking at and which pages they are not looking at.
Focus your attention on the following statistics: 1. Visitors -
You set up a web page because you want your visitors to do
something. It may be to purchase your product, sign up for your
newsletter or to request more information. Whatever your goal
is, you cannot simply look at the number of visitors to your
site to determine your success.
You can have a 1000 visitors, but if no one purchases your
product, signs up or asks for more information - you are not
achieving your goal. To figure out your success rate take your
sales or whatever you want your visitors to do and divide it by
the number of visitors. This will give you a percentage of
visitors that are "buying" what you are "selling".** Your goal
is to increase this percentage.
2. Pages - Find out which pages people are visiting and which
ones they are not. If they are not visiting a particular page -
could it be because your visitors are not interested? Perhaps,
you just need to fix your navigation to that page. You may want
to rename the link to the page. Perhaps the title is not
attracting the right attention.
3. Referrals - Keep track of your advertising campaigns,
reciprocal links and search engine referrals. How many referrals
are your advertising campaigns or links giving you? If this
number is low, there could be a number of factors affecting your
success. It could be that this is the wrong place to advertise
or perhaps your ad copy needs a bit of tweaking.
4. Keywords - This is an invaluable resource. This tells you how
people are finding your site on the search engines. It helps you
find the keywords you score high on so that you can maximize on
them.
I recommend taking the keywords listed in your stats and
checking your ranking on them at sitesolutions.com free rank
checking service at http://www.sitesolutions.com
Capitalize on these keywords. Make sure they appear in the
titles of your relevant pages and that they are in the text body
of these pages. Also ensure these keywords are in your meta tags.
In the end, don't take your statistics too literally. However,
do take the time to read through them and analyze the general
trends they are showing you. They can provide an invaluable
resource for you in the development of your site and business.