# 16 - Tracking Your Web Site Visitors

Tracking Your Web Site Visitors

By Chris Maher

After the work and expense of creating a web site, it would be nice if the orders just came rolling in. But in truth, much of the real work has just begun. The focus of many of my newsletters have been on promoting your site, and indeed few things are as important to online sales as getting lots of potential customers to view your pages.

But do you know who your visitors are, where they come from, and what motivates them to visit your site? The answers to these questions can really help you tune your site design, and allow you to quickly focus your attention on more successful promotional strategies.

Marketers have long bemoaned the fact that getting precise data is not easy on the Internet. The information that makes up the WWW is sent between computers using a protocol that is considered "stateless". Practically speaking, that means you can't know the name of the person who viewed your web site unless they tell you. But your visitors do leave much information behind, and the right software can help you learn a lot about those who browse your pages.

The server that hosts your web page tracks this information in what are known as log files. Every request that a server receives from the Internet is recorded, along with what action it took to fulfill that request. These files can be analyzed by special software and detailed reports generated, with specific information about every time your site was visited.

At last count, I read of more than 60 server log analysis software packages on the market. Some cost tens of thousands of dollars, and most need to be installed on the root server itself, not a job for the average computer user.

Most people use a virtual hosting service, or their ISP's computers to get their pages up on the web. (It rarely makes sense to own your own server with full time high speed connection to the Internet.) Contact your service and ask what kind of server analysis software they have installed, and how you can learn to use it to get detailed reports about your web site.

What kind of data can you expect from a good server log stat package?

Number of page impressions. This is much more important than the number of "hits". Hits are a measure of how many html elements were requested by the browser, so a single visitor looking at a single page can register as a dozen or more hits.
The average time visitors spend on your site. Adam Boettiger, moderator of the Internet Advertising List recounts a story about how analysis of server log files shows a client that 50% of the visitors to their home page left after 30 seconds. The site had been designed to look cool, and had may large graphic elements. But people were not willing to wait for more than a minute for it to load. The site owners would never have known that with just a "hit counter"
Number of unique visitors. Do you have one person visiting 100 times, or 100 people coming 1 time?
What pages are the most popular, and when. This will show you what your site does right. Can you show more of the things that people are looking for? Also, knowing when people visit can tell you if your pages are viewed by folks at work, or at home.
What pages are least popular. Do they need updating? Or is it a navigational problem? Make changes and watch the results.
Which pages of your site do people enter from, and where do they leave from. Most sites are designed with a home page that is considered a "front door", but folks bookmark what interests them. How can your site design benefit from those traffic patterns?
Where your visitors are coming from. The referrer log can tell you which sites sent visitors to you, even what keywords were used to find your site on a search engine. This information is critical to judge how successful any specific promotion is.
How people navigate through your site. Great information for improving your sites "ease of use".

Ok, you need good web statistics, but what software is right for you? Of course the answer will vary from site to site, but for a good overview of what is available check out PC Magazine's March 10th feature on web site analysis tools. You can access it on the net at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/webanalysis2/index.html

If you would like to see an example of the data generated from one of the most popular statistics package, check out the Default Report at the WebTrends site. Good log analysis packages generate full color graphs and link directly to all the sources of your traffic.

For those who want to really master web site analysis I recommend reading Web Site Stats : Tracking Hits and Analyzing Web Traffic by Rick Stout Bk&Cd Rom Edition Paperback, 298 pages Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill Publication date: January 1, 1997 ISBN: 007882236X List: $29.95 ~ (Amazon Books Price $23.96 )

So, what can you do if your site host doesn't provide access to data about your site traffic? Tell them how important it is to you! If they still don't provide what you need, consider moving your site. It's that important to know what is going on with your visitors. If that's not an option, you can at least install a simple web site counter, and track your visitors yourself. You will not get the depth of information that server log analysis will give you, but you can learn a lot.

For the most complete list of web page access counters and tracking software, check out http://www.markwelch.com/counter.htm. You will find links to dozens of free counter sites, and lots of good places to learn more about tracking software.

Don't forget one of the simplest ways to learn about your visitors is to ask them to sign a guest book. That has the added advantage of allowing you to send them information every time you update your site. It also has the effect of encouraging feedback to you.

The more you know about your visitors, the better you will be able to connect with them.

This page last updated: 09/02/04

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