Web Analytic Metrics or "Why love web site stats?"

Many people have build web sites as have many local businesses; but is it any good? Do people actually use it? How many times is the web site viewed? Is it lost in Cyberspace?

These questions and many more can be answered by an analysis of the statistics log. One "visit" is logged when someone actually enters the web site and ends when that person leaves.The crucial question is "number of page views" (how many pages are viewed before the person leaves the site). The page and its embedded files counts as a single page view. For example castlegarbc.ca received 203 visits and 838 page views; in layman's terms each visitor saw the first page of the site and then went to 4 other pages before he or she left. By contrast a busy local real estate site receives 6 page view per visit, the first page plus 5 others. Although the total numbers are different the ratio of visits to page views is similar. Both sites have "sticking power" Another important indicator of the web site's success or failure is the number of referrals and their source. Understanding where your referrals are coming from is essential in fine tuning your keywords (the words people use to fine your web site). The majority of referrals will come via search engine and sites which are linked to yours.

For example common words used to find castlegarbc.ca are Castlegar BC (no surprise), Castlegar News, Castlegar Sun (due to local news stories on the site) Kootenay Critters, Century 21 Castlegar (businesses listed at castlegarbc.ca), and more specific terms: father and son sport, volleyball spike.

The real estate site was found using its domain name, the word Castlegar (fewer words but more specific to "real estate") and through specialized real estate search engines such as its national affiliate site, the MLS site, and web sites from the same office.

Both sites were also found through popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo.