Are you regularly reviewing your website statistics? You should. Buried in those statistics is the indicator of your website's success (or lack thereof) along with customer information that can help you grow your business.
All credible internet service providers offer statistics of varying degrees. You should be able to discover easily how many people are visiting your website, the pages they look at and what site directed them to you.
What's the value of all this information? At their most basic, website statistics offer you a view of what your customer values in your website. Are they visiting the pages you thought were the most interesting? Are they staying to actually read anything? Is your home page engaging enough for them to spend more than three seconds with you?
One of my clients had me do a press release to announce her new product. The press release got over 2,000 hits. But the client doesn't know if anyone came to her website because she doesn't access her statistics. However, she does know she hasn't sold a single unit even with all the press release exposure.
That many hits to the press release normally would translate into at least 700 visitors to the website. Why hasn't she sold anything? It could be because no one finds value in her product, but more likely it is because her website isn't doing its job. Looking at her statistics would show her how many people are coming to the site, how many potential sales she missed. She'd learn how the readers found her site, which could indicate their other interests. And she'd know which pages had information that interested the reader.
I encourage all of my clients to review their website statistics at least once a month. If the traffic is low, develop a tactic to drive traffic your way. If no one is visiting a page, then consider removing it and using that space for information that is more engaging. If the majority of visits to certain pages are less than three seconds long, consider whether you are presenting the information in an easy to absorb fashion or whether you are navel-gazing.
If you have an e-commerce site and you aren't making sales, you need to ask yourself why that may be. And then adjust your website or product to be what your customer wants.
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2 comments:
Hi,
The stats packages (AW Stats etc) offered by most web hosts will give little to no usable information and in most case provide wildly inflated visitor counts. Have you looked at services such as Google Analytics? Compare Google's results to your site stats and you may get a shock.
Thanks for your note, John. I am very familiar with Google Analytics, in fact my web host uses this to supply a lot of my stats. I also use access to Statcounter.com which supplies me with a ton of great information. But even if folks only get access to their "inflated" stats, they will still be able to review spikes, patterns and other information. The point with the statistics is not just to know the actual number, but the behaviours. Thanks again. Wendy
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