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Editor's Note
Hello PromoteNewz Readers:
Analyzing your website traffic is one of the most imporant tasks of
website maintenance. It will help you keep your site up to date and
let you know what direction you need to steer your business tword in
the future in order to reap maximum profits.
This article should guide you to effectively analyzing you website
traffic.
Stephanie Mitchell and The PromoteNewz Team
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?
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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!
Philippa Gamse, CyberSpeaker, is an internationally recognized e-
business strategist. Check out her free tipsheet "Beyond the Search
Engines" for 17 ideas to promote your Website:
http://www.CyberSpeaker.com/tipsheet.html
Philippa can be reached at (831) 465-0317 or
mailto:pgamse@CyberSpeaker.com
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