What web statistics can tell you.
Most web site hosting services offer a stats package that you can study. If you're not sure where this is, call up your hosting service and ask them. Statistics are a vital part of measuring the effectiveness of your web site. If your present hosting service can't or won't provide you with a statistic package change to one that will such as virtualcommunity.ca. Without a statistic package your will never know how well your web site works!A statistics package takes your log files from your web site and changes them into a visual measuring tool. Web statistics will tell you: " How many people visit your site? " Where are they from? " How are visitors finding your site? " What traffic is coming from search engines, links from other sites, and other sources? " What keyword search phrases are they using to find your site? " What pages are frequented the most - what information are visitors most interested in? " How do visitors navigate within your web site?
The three most important statistics are the number of hits (each time a file is fetched or an image looked at) number of unique visits and number pages viewed. The statistic that is probably the most important for a web site is Page Views/Visitors. This gives you a good indication of two things. First, how many people are coming to your site, and two how long are they staying on your site. If you have 250 visitors and 300 page views you can figure that most visitors view one page on your site and then leave. Generally, if you're not getting 2 page views per visitor then you should consider upgrading your site's content so your visitors will stay around longer.
If the number of visits are increasing as well as the number of page view per visit then your web site is working, congratulations! For example: once a person visits the site he/she are not counted again in the statistics. Do an increase in unique visits means an increase in new visitors. Site stickiness is a good indicator of the s successful web site. The number of pages per visit, if greater than two indicates people are staying at your site and touring other pages once they have arrived on your main page.