In case you have a website, and want to know who is visiting it, you will need a web analytics tool. Of course, you could directly check the log and understand the behavior of users on your website. However, if there are too many records to read through, it can be a daunting task. A web analytics tool is a perfect piece of software that will give you the regular reports about who is visiting your website and how many times. You however need to know, how to use this utility effectively. Following is the explanation of the same.
Firstly, you need to collect the data. In case you have a web analytics tool, it may well be collecting all the logs for you. You must remember to include all the parts of your website that may be collecting the data. Such parts may include CGI logs, Web logs, forms (email requests), and any other data that your website may be generating.
The next step would be to transform the collected data into an understandable format that can be manipulated further. Reviewing the log file manually could be a hectic task. A web analytics tool would serve well here, making it easy to convert the collected data into understandable data. However, if some of your data is in the non-web log format like CGI, you will need to covert it yourself.
Now that you have all the data available to you, in an easy to understand format; you need to start your analysis. This should be the most interesting part of your web analytics task. What you should be looking for is the trend in your web traffic. Following are some of the points to figure out the trend:
Do more visitors visit your site at a specific time? Which of your pages are the most commonly visited ones? How many pages does a visitor visit on an average? For how long does a visitor stay in the site? How much traffic do you get from the search engines? What are the exit pages of your website? Who has linked to your website?
You should now be setting bench marks for yourself. With all the analysis done, you know the strong and weak points of your website. You can now plan your actions and execute them to reach newer standards. For instance, you could add more business links to the pages that are frequently visited by the people, and optimize the lesser visited ones for more traffic flow. In short, you should work in a direction to capitalize on the strong aspects of your website and improve on the weaker aspects.
Your visitors must know what changes you have made to your website. For this, you will need to promote your website in a way that your updates are highlighted. Unless people know about the improvements, it serves no good.
The above process is not a one time task, but you need to perform it continuously. The task is therefore a continuous process, and needs you to spend time on it regularly.
Firstly, you need to collect the data. In case you have a web analytics tool, it may well be collecting all the logs for you. You must remember to include all the parts of your website that may be collecting the data. Such parts may include CGI logs, Web logs, forms (email requests), and any other data that your website may be generating.
The next step would be to transform the collected data into an understandable format that can be manipulated further. Reviewing the log file manually could be a hectic task. A web analytics tool would serve well here, making it easy to convert the collected data into understandable data. However, if some of your data is in the non-web log format like CGI, you will need to covert it yourself.
Now that you have all the data available to you, in an easy to understand format; you need to start your analysis. This should be the most interesting part of your web analytics task. What you should be looking for is the trend in your web traffic. Following are some of the points to figure out the trend:
Do more visitors visit your site at a specific time? Which of your pages are the most commonly visited ones? How many pages does a visitor visit on an average? For how long does a visitor stay in the site? How much traffic do you get from the search engines? What are the exit pages of your website? Who has linked to your website?
You should now be setting bench marks for yourself. With all the analysis done, you know the strong and weak points of your website. You can now plan your actions and execute them to reach newer standards. For instance, you could add more business links to the pages that are frequently visited by the people, and optimize the lesser visited ones for more traffic flow. In short, you should work in a direction to capitalize on the strong aspects of your website and improve on the weaker aspects.
Your visitors must know what changes you have made to your website. For this, you will need to promote your website in a way that your updates are highlighted. Unless people know about the improvements, it serves no good.
The above process is not a one time task, but you need to perform it continuously. The task is therefore a continuous process, and needs you to spend time on it regularly.
About the Author:
Justin Harrison is an internationally recognised Internet Marketing expert and entrepreneur who has built up multiple 7 figure online business and consults to some of leading online brands including Amazon, BBC, AIG and many others.
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