Home
>
Traffic Building
>
What Do Your Site Statistics Mean, Anyway?

What Do Your Site Statistics Mean, Anyway?

The purpose of analyzing your web site statistics is to look for trends and to research the success level of your marketing campaigns. The numbers themselves can be misleading, as statistical packages count "hits" in different ways. If someone visits a page on your site doesn't mean that they read it completely.

The idea with web site statistics, then, is to look for trends. Instead of looking at the numbers a concrete items, look at them over time to see if they're increasing or decreasing. For example, if you do an internet marketing campaign, then look at your web site statistics to see if the campaign increased the number of hits to your site.

With that said, here are some numbers you should look at:

Visitor Information

There are three areas that are important to review each month and during each marketing campaign. The number of unique visitors will help you to determine whether your site is receiving more or less visitors each month.

The location tells you what country, and sometimes what State, the visitors are coming from. This is important if you're concerned about your global reach to other countries, or if you've done a marketing campaign in other States. Note that this is the State of the ISP where they connected to the Internet. Because AOL is in Virginia, you will have an inordinate amount of Virginia visitors, even though these people are actually all over the USA.

An important distinction is the concept of "visitors" versus "hits". Each person who visits your site is considered a "visitor". Each time a visitor looks at a page, that page and its contents are accessed, including the graphics on the page. As example, say that your home page has two graphics on it, plus some text. That is considered THREE elements on the page. When a visitor visits that page once, your statistics will show ONE visitor and THREE hits.

Time of Day Activity

This area of your statistics helps you to determine which days of the week have the most activity, and which time of day is the most active. This can be helpful to know when to schedule chats and teleclasses. For instance, if Wednesdays at 3PM are popular times for your site, they may be popular times for teleclasses. It's important to note here that one of the most popular times for people to search the web is weekdays after lunch. (People are at work and having a sugar low after digesting their lunch and are surfing the net instead of working.) If this is a popular time for people to be surfing the net, then this might also be a popular time for an internet chat on your web site.

Referrals

This section of your statistics will tell you who is sending people to your web site. It lists which search engines people use, as well as which keywords or key phrases people use to find your site. In addition, this section will also list what other sites are linking from their site to your site. (When someone links from their site to your site, it's called an "inbound link" or "incoming link".)

Pages

This section of your statistics will help you to determine which pages are visited most often, how long people stay on a page (presumably to read it), and which page people exit your site from. Again, trends matter here more than the concrete numbers. Are certain pages more popular than others? Are people only spending 5 seconds on a page that should take 3 minutes to read?

Error reports

This section tells you where people had problems accessing your site. If people try to access a certain page and can't, it will be recorded here. If your site has been unavailable, you'll see these numbers rise.

For a list of all internet error message numbers and they're corresponding meaning, check out this website:

http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/error.asp

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many number to look at in your statistics, and many ways to interpret them. If you pay more attention to trends and problems, and less attention to actual numbers, you'll be ahead of the game!

About The Author

? 2004 Karyn Greenstreet.

Karyn Greenstreet is a Self Employment expert and small business coach. She shares tips, techniques and strategies with self-employed people to create and grow their businesses, stay focused and motivated, and perform at their peak. Visit her website at http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/error.asp

family-safe home cleaners Lincolnshire ..

In The News:

Scammers are flooding inboxes with fake tracking alerts that mimic real carriers, exploiting the holiday rush to steal logins and personal data.

The Fox News AI Newsletter brings you the latest news on AI technology advancements and the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

Texas family reunites with missing 11-year-old cat Grayson after 103 days using Petco Love Lost's AI photo matching technology and community help.

Tired of AI customer service loops? These insider tricks help you escape "frustration AI" and get real human help when you need it most for urgent issues.

Unlock richer audio from your streaming apps with simple tweaks to volume normalization, equalizer settings, and quality preferences for cleaner sound.

Scammers are sending fake Facebook settlement payout emails that mimic legitimate notices from the privacy settlement administrator to deceive users.

Holiday shopping scams surge as fake refund emails target distracted consumers during Black Friday and holiday seasons, costing Americans billions annually.

The AI-powered IRMO M1 exoskeleton features four modes, including turbo, eco, training and rest for hiking, running, cycling and sports with eight-hour battery life.

OpenAI announced upgrades for its ChatGPT Images platform on Tuesday, saying the program can now make more precise edits and produce images more quickly.

Chrome for Android now turns web articles into AI-powered podcast conversations. Get hands-free browsing with Google Gemini's natural audio summaries.

LastPass faces $1.6 million fine from U.K. regulators after 2022 data breach exposed 1.6 million users. Password manager failed proper security controls.

Petco disclosed a data breach exposing customer Social Security numbers, financial account details, and driver's license information due to a software error.

Baseball teams can now analyze complete swing mechanics in normal training environments using Theia's markerless AI system that processes standard high-speed footage.

Smart home hacking fears overblown? Expert reveals real cybersecurity risks and simple protection tips to keep your connected devices safe from hackers.

MIT develops needle-free glucose monitor using light technology. Revolutionary device could replace painful finger pricks for diabetes management.

The ClickFix campaign disguises malware as legitimate Windows updates, using steganography to hide shellcode in PNG files and bypass security detection systems.

Researchers from Osaka Metropolitan University designed a 21-foot dome that combines aquaculture and hydroponics to create a self-sustaining urban food system.

The Fox News AI Newsletter gives readers the latest AI technology advancements, covering the challenges and opportunities AI presents.

ChatGPT data breach exposes personal info of users through partner Mixpanel. OpenAI confirms names, emails compromised in security incident.

Android rolls out Emergency Live Video for 911 calls, letting dispatchers see real-time scenes during emergencies. Great for holiday travel safety.

Malicious Chrome and Edge extensions collected browsing history, keystrokes and personal data from millions of users before Google and Microsoft removed them.

Google's new Call Reason feature lets Android users mark calls as urgent before dialing, displaying an urgent label to recipients using Phone by Google app.

Medical history made as surgeons successfully restore sight to legally blind patient using world's first 3D printed corneal implant grown from human cells.

Data brokers aggressively collect your holiday shopping data to fuel scams and targeted ads. Learn how to delete your digital profile before 2025 starts.

Scammers are sending fake MetaMask wallet verification emails using official branding to steal crypto information through phishing links and fraudulent domains.

What Do Your Site Statistics Mean, Anyway?

Traffic Building