Web Site Management: Watching Your Visitors
When you visit a web site an entry is made into a file exposing
just about everything you can imagine. Your TCP/IP address is
recorded, as is your browser type, JavaScript version and
monitor resolution. Even the URL of where you came from is
recorded in these log files!
No, this is not some insidious plan of Orwellian proportions aka
1984. In spite of what the newspapers would have you believe,
this information is not being maintained in some East German,
cold war style database. The purpose is much more mundane, and
much more innocent. Believe me, very few webmasters have the
time or inclination to look or care about what you personally
have done on their web site.
This tracking is simply a function of every decent web server on
the planet. It is essential to the management of any credible
web site. In fact, if you are a webmaster who has access to your
server logs, you can determine exactly what's going on with your
web site at any time. If you cannot get to your server logs (and
few free hosts will give you that access) then you are stuck
with counters and such, which are a poor substitute for the real
thing.
What kind of data can you get from your server logs? (Note that
Hitbox and other similar services provide many of these
functions as well.)
How many visitors do you get for each page of your site? - This
is very important so you can determine where to concentrate your
efforts. For example, if page A gets 100,000 visitors and B gets
10, then you might want to sell ads on A and somehow improve B
(or eliminate it entirely).
How long are visitors staying on each page? - A very useful
piece of information which can tell you if people are actually
reading your pages or just surfing past them.
What pages are your primary entrance pages? - In spite of
popular belief, visitors gain access to your site in every way
possible. It's often true that the majority of your visitors may
never even see your home page. This kind of statistic allows you
to determine which pages your visitors are landing upon. Armed
with this information, and you can determine areas of your site
which deserve your attentions. For example, if the majority of
your visitors are entering your site on page NNN instead of your
home page, perhaps you want to include very obvious links to
your index on that page.
What are your exit pages? - Even more important is the pages
that are causing people to leave your site. You can examine
these statistics to see if you are losing visitors needlessly,
perhaps due to slow loading, bad content or other reasons. You
can correct these and keep your visitors longer.
Which paths are your visitors following? - For example, your
visitors enters your site on page A, then surfs to B, then D,
then Z, then exits your site. This can help your determine where
to place ads and how to restructure your content.
Where are your visitors coming from? - A very critical piece of
information, especially if you are running ad campaigns or link
exchanges. You can use this statistics to determine if your
promotional methods are actually working. In addition, I've
found it useful to determine if our site is featured in articles
and recommendations.
Which browsers are they using? - A very useful statistics, which
can guide you in which HTML tags you use and how you code your
web pages. What are their screen resolutions? - If most of your
visitors are running 800X600 and your site is 1024X768, then
you've got a problem. This statistic can help you fix that.
How many unique visitors did you get? - Different than page
views or hits, this statistic helps you determine if you are
getting many people visiting your site. This is most useful in
determining if an ad campaign is actually working.
What search terms got your visitors here? - Useful if you are
optimizing your pages for search engine placement. I've found it
very interesting to find out what search keywords are getting
people to my site, and how these often bear no resemblance to my
own concepts of how people search.
Using these and other statistics, you can optimize your web
site. For example, you may find that people are often leaving
your site after visiting page XYZ. You can then test that page,
and you can determine why it is driving people away. Perhaps it
loads slowly or has offensive banner ads? Once you know the
cause, you have a chance of correcting the issue.
Using these statistics intelligently, and you can create a
better experience for your visitors. If you are selling
something on your web site, the statistics will tell you areas
that you can improve, and areas that you shouldn't touch because
they are working well. Without the statistics, you are running
blind.