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Credit Articles
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Your Own Homebased Business
Web Statistics
Now that your web site is up and running you want
to know how many people are visiting your site and
how they are finding it. Most web hosts give you
access to this information (and a lot more) in the
form of web statistics.
All visits to your site are logged by the server
software. Log files contain information about the
origin of the visitor (their IP address), the type
of browser they were using, which pages they viewed,
how long they stayed, whether or not they arrived
from a search engine and if so, what keywords they
used to locate your site. All very useful information.
The trouble is, raw log files are scary to look
at and impossible to make any sense of. They are
long lists of numbers and cryptic words that can
only reveal their secrets with the aid of a statistics
program. There are a few stats programs to choose
from. They take the raw server logs and parse them
into readable (and sometimes colourful) charts that
are fairly easy to interpret.
Most web hosts will include a stats program as
part of their hosting package. You should be able
to access it through the control panel which is
used to make various settings on your account. Some
of the popular web stat programs are AWStats, Analog,
and WebAlizer. All three of these programs are free.
Stats programs divide the information of the log
files into useful categories. A summary of the data
may be included at the top of the readout and tell
you information such as 'unique visitors', 'number
of hits', and 'number of pages'.
Not all this information is important. The number
of hits, for example, simply counts the total number
of requests for any individual part of your site
including graphics, script files and any other files
that are part of a page. If your home page has 4
pictures and 2 other files the hit count is increased
by 7 each time someone views that page.
The number of page views is important because it
tells you which pages are popular. This allows you
to fine-tune your site by dropping or modifying
unpopular pages and making sure that popular pages
link to areas that you want to promote.
Popular entry and exit pages are also worth tweaking.
Visitors will not always arrive at your site through
the home page, especially if they've found your
site through a search engine. Make sure that popular
entry pages contain relevant information and adjust
exit pages to be more appealing. Exit pages should
provide one last chance for them to buy or bookmark
your site for future reference.
Referring sites show you where people are coming
from. If they have found you from a search engine
you will also see what keywords they used to find
your site. This information tells you which keywords
are important for optimizing your site. You can
then design new content based on these keywords
to attract even more visitors in the future.
Rather than rely on the stats produced by your
server, you can hire a third party service to monitor
your web site. These services range from basic 'counter'
that usually offer less information than your server
does, to comprehensive client-side stats collection.
Stats services can be useful if you need more precise
information about your visitors. For example, visitors
from a large organization may all appear to be the
same because they all have the same IP address.
Stat services can break down IP addresses into individual
users.
These services can be useful for more precise monitoring
of your website and for targeting specific niches.
Most site owners, however, will find enough useful
information in their server's statistics.
About the Author
Liz Roberts is a loan consultant
with NewHorizon
Finance and has been running an online finance
company since 1989. Bad Credit? Join our mailing
list for tips on building and repairing
your credit yourself, without hiring a credit
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