How to Get and Analyze Website Traffic Statistics
Importance of Web Traffic Visitor and Search Terms Analysis
To Improve Web Sales

Analyze Your Traffic and Visitor Search Terms and Paths--
You NEED to know

Traffic Monitoring and Analysis is a Key to Increase Sales

To Improve Sales - Diagnose the Reasons your Site is Not Selling

Your odds of web success go down several times, from about 1 in 10 to 1 in 30 if you are not utilizing the important data about what your visitors do to find you, how long they stay, where they go on your site and what links they use to exit the site. Web Traffic statistics and tools give you that information.

You can't even get started analyzing what is going on with your site and traffic without it.

You can approach web traffic statistics one of two ways:

  • A rudimentary simple StatCounter and Google Keyword Tool, or
  • Properly using those two tools along with Google's Webmaster Tools and Adwords Search Terms Testing and Analysis.

A professional web design-web marketing firm can quickly help you get set up, install and show your staff how to use these tools for about $150 to $700, depending on how much you want to do, on a typical website.

CLICK HERE For QUICK SET UP and INSTALL of major Traffic Counter/ Reporter on your site's pages (code into all pages) for $35 (up to 10 pages, $3.50 per additional page) by top established USA web designer.

What are Traffic Counters and Traffic Analysis and Why they are Important

Web traffic statistics analysis is crucial to Web-Success. You should plan for it and utilize it to monitor your site’s visitors every day. Traffic data rapidly tells you what is going on and what may be wrong with your site.

Sadly, over 90% of websites are not successful. They either do not get traffic, get the wrong traffic or do not convert visitors to a sale, or all three. Success depends on learning which of those problems you have, and how to fix them.

You are likely in the early or late stage of such failure, or slightly succeeding and wanting to do better.

All such cases require analysis and tracking of:
  • traffic,
  • how site visitors find you,
  • what they searched for,
  • where they came from (sties and geographic),
  • how long they stay on some pages or sections,
  • where they go on your site, and
  • what links they click on to exit the site.

If you studied our articles on Web-Success before starting a new site, you would have emphasized such major factors for strategy and site refinements during early planning and design. And you would have monitored key traffic statistics for other reasons as well. (That goes for many crucial factors presented in our articles).

Basic Purposes and Concepts in Web Traffic Analysis

The purpose is obviously to find out what visitors are doing, how many there are, whether they are interested in our site and what parts they are interested in. We mainly monitor traffic volume, search terms-keywords, came from, time on site (bounce rate), visitor paths and Exit Activity-Links.

Again, there is always something sub-optimum in the first versions of websites and web strategy. Even if you tested appeals and keywords, there WILL be some surprises. Some will be oversight of words with multiple meanings---that is people misunderstanding what your site is about, looking for something else. You certainly don't want to pay for those in a PPC program. But neither do you want to work for three years on an organic promotion method only to find you wasted your time and money. Statistics help both kinds of promotion programs and help to refine the site content wording and layout.

One of the most important things Web Stats will tell you is whether you are capturing much or any interest. If 97% of visits are less than 5 seconds, you have major problems. If lots of people stay and read but don't buy, you have problems. And clearly if few people ever show up, you can tell the site itself is not distinctive or unique or has little appeal, but you can't even get enough data to see what other problems the site has.

Traffic Tools Overlap with Keyword-Appeals Analysis Tools.

If you are testing Appeals and Keywords correctly, you are already doing part of the job of traffic stats analysis.

Four Key Tools and Methods for Monitoring Visitor Traffic and Activity

There are four key tools to find and analyze these statistics:
  • Statcounter (or equivalent) data collection code on pages of your site.
  • Google Webmaster Tools (part of “Products” under your Google account)
  • Google Adwords Campaign Data (search terms words)
  • Google’s Keyword Tool (keywords finder and stats)

These four tools should be used together to identify not only the traffic data, but possible reasons why your site might not be being seen (visibility) as much or where you would like it to.

Remember, integrating web marketing strategy with website design and content based on appeals and building credibility are only part of the requirements for success.

You must constantly improve your “theory” (even if it was tested by appeals testing) based on the realities of a peculiar, crowded, cluttered, competitive, changing place called “the web”. It is never quite what you guessed, even if your guesses were based on testing.

For example, recent research has found that about 30% of business and retail site traffic activity comes from individual’s emails and bookmarked favorites---that is links they have on their own computers. They get those by visits and bookmarking, or by emails from friends or email campaigns.

Also research has found that productive useful traffic from Social Media Community type sites accounts for little over 2% of actual sales activity. Do not delude yourself into thinking that organic and social media marketing is THE answer to all your marketing problems, because for most websites it IS NOT.

These kinds of facts are NOT what you are lead to believe by most of the “guru” “SEO experts” who often are selling internet “snake oil”. Always note their non-existent guarantees. Many are using methods that can actually harm your search engine rankings. Traffic analysis tells you what’s really happening.

How you Use each Traffic Statistics Tool:

We will explain the simplest Web Statistics Tool last, the Stat Counters. But Google's tools are important and useful also. The Google products are explained on Google sites, and are not difficult to use in their simpler forms, especially “Webmaster Tools”.

Google’s “Webmaster Tools” tells you what the Biggest Spider in the world is seeing of your site, and tells you things that may be wrong with it. It can tell you all the terms ever used to search for your site, and those most commonly used, both organic and paid. It reminds you of the importance of periodic updates and resubmittal of your ‘.xml” “sitemap”, among other crucial things like site down, failed links, and page load time ranges (crucial to Google organic ranking and quality of your “visitors’ experience”).

When you sign in to your Google account, you are the "author" of a site that you can list within Webmaster Tools. Simply look near the account sign-in (upper right) and as you get to your account on the left you will see "products". An important feature to set up with your email address is notices of when the spider can’t find your site because it is down. That’s at least some monitoring. The spider usually visits a normal site almost daily.

Google’s Adwords is indispensable to testing what some searchers type that you don’t want to be used--known as “negative keywords”. Used properly as part of your web strategy refinement and site design, you automatically find these while finding what key appeals and words match features of your product.

Google’s Keyword Tool is under the “Tools and Analysis” tab of their Adwords product. Even if you are not using Adwords campaigns or testing, the tool is indispensable to see what terms are popular, that is they generate high traffic.

Don’t be misled into choosing mostly the most popular words, even if you mostly favor organic ranking over paid promotion. You are looking for nichey phrases of 2 to 4 words each, a number of them focused in each of a few landing pages each focused on customer segments, appeals relating to those segments and your product features which meet the segment’s needs and motives.

These important steps, along with analyzing what works that your competition has been doing are KEYS to Web-Success. Don’t neglect any part of them. Or hire inexpensive professionals that use these tools every day (us).

StatCounter (turn off cookie blockers to get in) is your basic full-featured website traffic tool. Website traffic stat services go far beyond the statistics utilities on your hosting server (via Control Panel). StatCounter is easier to use and to read, without so much useless data on server hits and browser info, although services have that.

To use StatCounter or similar, simply follow instructions to sign (free or extended) and find the simplest code to trigger counting to install on your site in your pages that you want counted, at least your home page and landing pages. Allow about an hour of your web developer’s time to do most of it on a site under 10 pages.

You can set up StatCounter to send you a weekly email summary of traffic to your site, which is the minimum you should be watching your statistics. When you are running Google Adwords or Bing testing campaigns, StatCounter works hand-in-hand with Adwords to keep you abreast of what kind of traffic you are getting. It helps you keep your Adwords geographically focused as well.

Estimate on What is Required to Get Started Doing Traffic Analysis Correctly:

Your web designer and their web marketing arm can help you get started on these and show you how to use them yourself to monitor and market your site properly. You should allow about 20 hours of your web liason staff to familiarize themselves with using these tools enough to go forward and do more.

For StatCounter and Google Webmaster Tools setup and orientation of your staff on just these two, allow about 3 hours of Developer time for setup and about 3 hours of coaching of your staff on using them with followup questions over about a month. For Adwords and using their Keyword Tool, allow a minimum of about 10-15 hours of web expert’s time to set up a small campaign, run some testing and show your staff how it works enough that they can begin learning how to set up campaigns and monitor traffic.

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Failure to utilize these tools and monitor web traffic is often a major cause of failures at both design and promotion stages. Although it is not listed in common fatal mistakes, such failures also keep the site back from its potential.

If you are doing things right, web stats will be not only second nature to your ongoing site and strategy refinements, but essential tools for making such refinements.

We want to work with management capable of applying and exploiting these tools to carve out their niche, their style, and improve their website and appeals and use Google's suggested "Campaigns" and split-testing AT LEAST to guide organic promotion efforts, site content and improvements.

Little companies who might want to grow up to be a big companies should think hard about all the information on this site, to do it RIGHT, the REAL way--not what the latest guru teacher who can't "do" might be telling you about social media panaceas. The not-so-easy real ways, proven ways are all here at your fingertips.

Only a few of you will grasp this and realize the opportunity to defeat misinformed and lazy competitors. Business success ALWAYS requires thinking, hard work, strong promotion, a good unique product and some money. Most people avoid the hard work, reading and thinking and run after a magical biz-opp scheme; See Avoiding get-rich schemes. Those few who "get it"---will be the successful business owners of the future (hopefully our client).

To explore "doing it right" at affordable rates, contact us. Start off with your goals and get a preliminary Website Critique.

GOOD LUCK !!!

Note: To learn more about proper design, browse our other tips and guides and tips to plan, do research, test and choose a Domain name and Hosting Company, then Design and implement the site. Good management starts with knowledge, particularly in a modern, complex changing field and topic like the internet.

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