What Traffic Analysis Can Do for You
All websites can benefit from more comprehensive information about their website traffic. Detailed statistics enable websites to make informed decisions about site usability, and the effectiveness of search engine optimization and online marketing campaigns.
For sites conducting online marketing campaigns, DogByte’s Live Traffic Analysis can provide instant information on the effectiveness of each campaign. For example, a site advertising using Google's AdWords system can get an instant report on the cost per conversion of each keyword and pay per click listing. This information is invaluable in making accurate and informed decisions about online marketing.
Importance of Traffic Analysis
Understanding your Website's traffic logs and statistics is crucial to your online marketing mix. It tells you what your visitors do on your site. It tells you how they got there and how much time they spend on each area of your site. It’s valuable data that you must keep track of.
If you understand what you're seeing, you can make some great strategic and marketing decisions, not only for your Website, but also
for your business as a whole. Here are seven key marketing elements DogBytes recognizes are important to know about 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 30 seconds -- you've got a problem!
2. Most and Least Requested Pages
So what's really hot on your site, and what's not? 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 may be 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 of your visitors come through your home page, so you need complete navigation on every entry point to your site. 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 will always be some of these. However, 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, it’s not only Virginia that loves your site -- 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 organic hits from other countries, that might be a hint that some second language content is required.
6. Referring URLs
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.
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 them, you may be surprised by what they are.
As you pull all these things together remember that your site should not cater to your preferences, but to your visitors’ preferences. If it isn’t converting, reexamine it for flaws and try testing to determine what brings in the best results |