Website Traffic Analysis - Part 1

Thursday, 03 December 2009

Website traffic data is one of the most basic information that your web hosting company will provide you with.  However, you can be slightly overwhelmed by the influx of information that is given to you.  You should understand how to use the information and be able to apply it to the needs and requirements of your business and website.  Let us go through the most basic data, which is the average number of visitors to your site on a monthly, weekly and daily basis.

Website Traffic

Website traffic is actually a very accurate basis of your website’s activity.  However, be wary about perceiving this as a gauge for the success of your site.  This is quite an inaccurate generalization to make.  What you must do is take a close look at your visitors’ behavior.   This will help you measure the effectiveness of your business and site.

Now let us discuss “hits”.  Hits signify the number of requests for information received by the server.  It is actually a very exaggerated concept that some people think is a measure of website traffic.  A hit means that a single visitor can navigate through your page, click on 15 graphics on the page and the server shall record this as 15 hits.  But in actuality, you only had a single visitor checking out a page on your site.  So you will see, hits can be quite an inaccurate approximation of your website traffic.  It is not a reliable tool when analyzing website traffic either.

You can better analyze the behavior of your visitors as more visitors visit your site.  The more visitors you have, the greater traffic to your site , the more accurate your interpretation can become.  Heavier traffic will reap more precise conclusions to the overall behavior trends of your visitors as opposed to having a small number of visitors.  Minimal traffic can warp your analysis.

The main goal of gathering web traffic statistics is to show you how well your site is serving your visitors.  The length of time a visitor stays on your site says a lot about your site.  If an average visitor spends a short time on your site then it is indicative of a possible problem.  The next challenge would therefore be to try and figure out what the problem really is.

Check on your keywords.  You may be using the wrong keywords causing you to direct also the wrong kind of visitors to your site.  It is thus, important to use the right keywords to be able to bring your target market to your site.  Next, look into your graphics.  Sometimes graphics may be confusing or daunting.  This may be another cause for your visitors to exit your site in an instant.  It is important that you know how much time your visitors spend on your site.  Knowing this can help you address specific problems encountered by your site.  Once you know what your problems are, you can then find ways to fix them.  By continuously monitoring the time your visitors spend on your site, you may also measure the effectiveness of the solution you implemented to fix the problems.