Articles for Entrepreneurs
How to Analyze Your Web Site Statistics

More and more these days it is important to understand how the web contributes to business success. An entrepreneur without a website is nobody. Even start up entrepreneurs have websites. The problem is that many sites are designed without search engine optimization in mind and very few entrepreneurs are analyzing their website statistics.

So the question is, if you don't know how much traffic you're receiving and where it's coming from, how can you know how to improve upon your business success? Even more important, once you have your website data, what do you do with it?

The very first place to start is to make sure your website is designed with the search engines in mind. If this is not the case, STOP READING RIGHT NOW. It's pointless to analyze statistics if you haven't done a good job of setting up a search engine friendly website. If you don't know that your site is well designed, it probably isn't. In fact, in 9 out of 10 cases I review, websites are designed by well-meaning, part-time designers who know nothing about how to drive traffic to a site.

This article is for the entrepreneur who has taken a risk and wisely invested in a designer who knows their stuff. This is basic information not intended for the experienced website owner.

In your quest for Effortless Marketing through your website design, it is absolutely crucial that you gather statistics regarding your website traffic. You want to know several key pieces of information in order to analyze how your site is doing.

• Unique Visitors -The number of unique visitors tells you how many brand new visitors are coming to your site each day. Total visitors represent the sum of unique visitors (who have come to your site only once) plus those who have returned a second or more time. Is this number going up or down?

• Most Active Visitors – This report will tell you who is staying on your site the longest and will usually tell you the IP address of the visitor (their computer address) and the number of page views. Visitors with "bot" or "crawl" are actually robots that are indexing your site for search engine content.

• Page Views – You want to find out how many pages have been viewed on your site. If you have 40 unique visitors and 50 page views per day, this means most visitors are not looking at more than one page. You want visitors looking around and viewing your site.

• Page Requests – This report tells you which of your pages is the most popular. If you find out that many visitors are going to your Resources Page, you want to make sure you have plenty of resources.

• Average Time on Page – If the average time on your home page is only a second or two, you may want to re-write your content to address the needs of your target client.

• Entry Pages – This report tells you what pages your visitors are landing on. The key to remember here is that the content on the page is what draws visitors in – they are conducting searches on the internet for key words and are being directed to pages on your site.

• Referral Reports – This report tells you which websites your visitors are coming from. You may find sites like Google and Yahoo! high on the list.

• Key Word Phrases - What are the key word phrases visitors are entering in search engines to find your site? You may want to consider creating one page per key word phrase that is vital to your business.

The main lesson learned:
Content is king on the web. What can you offer your target clients to attract them to your site? Let me give you a hint - It's not all about you. What are you providing that is of value?

How to get website statistics:
• Google Analytics is free (ask your web designer to set this up for you)
• The company that hosts your website might have a package for a nominal fee. Godaddy charges $2.99 per month for Traffic Facts.

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© Copyright 2008- Suzanne Muusers - All Rights Reserved

About the author

Suzanne Muusers is a Business Coach and Business Expert based in Scottsdale, Arizona. She is the creator of The Two Page Mini Business Plan and The Prosperous Entrepreneur’s™ Guide to Life Planning. She is a credentialed member of the International Coach Federation and works exclusively with entrepreneurs and financial advisors who want to leave behind their lives as business workers and become business owners earning six figures and above annually. Download her Free Report "Top 5 Business Mistakes Entrepreneurs Should Avoid"

Read marketing tips and how to's on Suzanne's Blog – The Prosperous Entrepreneur

 

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