Top 7 Reasons to Review your Web Traffic Analysis
Understanding your Website's traffic logs is a crucial component
of your online marketing mix. It tells you what your visitors
do, of their own volition, so it's "market research that cannot
lie!" If you understand what you're seeing, you can make some
great strategic and marketing decisions, not only for your
Website, but for your business as a whole. Here are seven key
marketing elements to study in your traffic analysis: 1. General
Statistics Remember that a "hit" is recorded every time the
visitor gets an image or some text from your site -- what you
need to know is unique user sessions, and how much time people
spend on the site -- how "sticky" and engaging it is. If you
have tons of traffic, but the average time spent on your site is
less than a minute -- you've got a problem! 2. Most and Least
Requested Pages So what's really hot, and what's not on your
site? The most popular pages give you great clues as to what to
offer more of. The least viewed pages may tell you that some of
your content isn't as fascinating as you think, or this maybe a
heads-up that your navigation isn't driving traffic as
effectively as it should. 3. Top Entry and Exit Pages These are
great reminders that not all your visitors come through your
home page, so you need complete navigation on every entry point
to your site. And if people are leaving from pages that you
don't want them to, perhaps you need stronger calls to action in
those areas. 4. Single Access Pages These are the pages where a
visitor looks at the site then leaves immediately. Since the job
of your home page is partly to filter the traffic that's not
right for you, there'll always be some of these. But if you have
a splash page, and significant numbers of visitors don't stay
through it... perhaps it shouldn't be there? 5. Cities, States
and Countries No, your site isn't a huge hit just in Virginia --
those are all the AOL users! Unfortunately, because this
information depends on where the ISP is based, it can be pretty
misleading. But if you are getting a lot of hits from other
countries, that might be a hint for some second language
content. 6. Referring URL's
This tells you which search engines are sending you traffic, and
which of your advertising and linking strategies are working. It
also tells you about sites that may have links to you that you
didn't know about -- check these out -- it's a great
relationship builder to send a thank you -- you might even get
some new business from it!
7. Top Search Keywords and Phrases
Once the search engines have listed your site, these tell you
what the really hot search terms are for your business. Pay
attention to these -- they may have some surprises -- one of my
clients recently wrote a book on a subject that was really
sought after on her site -- until she saw the top keywords, she
had no idea it was so popular! I hope this helps in your future
marketing decisions.