by Jeff Alderson
Learning how to read web traffic analysis reports can be very important for webmasters to do for a number of reasons. Learning how to interpret these reports correctly can be a bit tricky though.
Finding the most accurate data is easy. The best stats come directly from web hosting companies. This source, however, often provides more information than many can digest right away. The most important numbers to consider at first are the traffic stats that show on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
These numbers tend to be the most accurate in regard to a particular site’s activity level. Be careful not to read too much into the traffic numbers without delving deeper. While it might seem as if the more visitors who go to a site, the better the site is doing, it’s not always true. You need to know what visitors do once they get to a site. This is the real measure of effectiveness.
A lot of people confuse the actual hits with the quality of traffic. In reality, hits just describe the number of requests for information a server gets. This can break down to nothing more than the number of images on a page. If, for example, you have 5 images on a page, a single visit can register as five hits. Considering this, hits alone aren’t the only thing to pay attention to in analyzing traffic.
The more traffic a site gets, the easier it becomes to get an accurate interpretation of statistics. The lower the number, the more likely it is that the analysis will be distorted somewhat.
The real trick is to take the traffic stats and use them to figure out how effective is site is for visitors. One of the biggest numbers to pay attention to for this is the length of time visitors stay on your site. If their stays are short, you might have a big problem.
In some cases, the problem turns out to be nothing more earth shattering than bad keywords drawing in the wrong traffic. In other cases, it could be the visual design of the site turning off visitors. Should your site be difficult to navigate or hard on the eyes, people might turn away fast. If you make the decision to tweak things to fix these issues, study the numbers again to see if the tweaks worked.
Stats can also be helpful to see if sections of a site work like you want them to. Should visitors navigate too quickly away from a page you think is important, you might need to improve the page or its incoming links. This works in the opposite, too. If a page that isn’t that important is getting more attention than it deserves, consider moving better content to it since visitors seem to visit there naturally.
Stats are important for all sites, but they can be especially useful tools for those who want to make their pages work more effectively for making more money from all of your pages. Using stats to find out what is wrong or right with a site can be incredibly helpful.
Although your site might have specific exit pages like order forms or other similar designs, these may not be the only “exit pages” that show up on a report. This is not at all abnormal, since not all visitors will find what they want on your site. If a particular page, however, shows up as an exit page too much and it was not designed to be so, look more closely at the page. Examine it for weaknesses and see what can be done to improve its pull.
After you’ve looked at visitor stats, then consider the keywords. Look at the reports to see which keywords work and actually bring in traffic. If visitors are coming in on keywords important to your site, you’re on the right track. If a particular keyword brings in those visitors who actually do what you want them to, that keyword is very important.
Should a lot of visitors arrive by way of weak keywords that are not part of the theme, it is time to get rid of these keywords on your site. Since these visitors are not likely to buy or act because the theme doesn’t fit your need, focusing efforts on these keywords can be a waste of time.
When it comes to figuring out a site’s effectiveness, stats are very helpful. They can also point out weak spots and assist in fixing them. Those who read stats with care can really supercharge their sites and revenue.