Website statistics are perhaps the single most important resource you as a site owner have in determining how well your site is performing.  Site stats are really the litmus test of whether your significant web investment dollars are paying off as well as they should.

Not only can they tell you the number of visitors and where those visitors came from; they can also reveal more detailed facts such as what pages those visitors viewed, how long they spent viewing them, and the search engine keywords they used to find you.

In this article, I’ll explain the objectives of web analytics (measuring and analyzing your website statistics) and then define and elaborate on some of the more important, common terms you’ll find when viewing your site statistics.  Hopefully you'll walk away knowing why to track them, what to measure, and what it all means.

The Objectives of Web Analytics
Before even beginning to measure and analyze your site stats, know that there are two overall objectives to this:

1. To measure the success of your Internet marketing strategy as it relates to initially driving visitors to your website.
    
2. To assess visitor behavior on your website, and use that assessment as the basis for modifications to your website and/or Internet marketing strategy.

That said; keep the following thoughts in mind BEFORE you start measuring and analyzing:

• Don’t measure for the sake of measuring. Tracking a specific statistic or trend should lead you to a goal. Set your goals and track the numbers that will help you achieve those goals.
   
• As your site and Internet marketing goals change, the things you measure should also change. Just because you choose a specific data point now, doesn't mean you’ll keep it forever. Change is the only constant.
   
• Before making modifications to your website or Internet marketing strategy, establish a numeric baseline. This will insure that when you do start making changes, you’ll have a frame of reference over time.
   
• Building your site is an ongoing process. After developing short and long term goals, and defining your improvement cycle‚ accept that things will change over time and eventually you'll change your site structure, your content‚ or even the entire site.
   
• In the end; set your goals‚ monitor your performance, and make changes as required.

Remember, very few site owners use their site stats to make decisions regarding site changes and fewer still use them to as part of their overall Internet marketing strategy.  Don't be one of them.

Important Website Statistics Terms
With these thoughts in mind, here are some of the more important terms you’re likely to run across when monitoring and measuring your site stats and what they mean:

Hits
A hit is any element called by your browser when it requests a page. A single page may register a single hit or tens of hits depending on the content of the page. For example, a page containing five graphics will register six hits – one for the page and five for the graphics.

Ignore hits, they’re the most overused and misunderstood measurement in web analytics. The number of hits your website gets is meaningless.  In a nutshell, Hits are a useless metric - ignore them.

Visitors/Visits
Visitor numbers help you spot trends in your website's traffic. For example, you can use a monthly or quarterly report to see if visits have increased or decreased from the last period. This information can help you evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. If an increase in visits follows the launch of an advertising campaign, you can conclude that the campaign is drawing more people to your site.

This report also helps you identify potential problems on your site. For example, you may monitor an increase in visits but the overall time spent per visit shows that visits are relatively short. This scenario indicates that your marketing efforts are drawing people to your site, but that the site itself is not holding their interest.

Time Spent per Visit
Time Spent per Visit refers to the average amount of time each visitor spends during a visit to your site. This can help you gauge the level of interest in your website's content. For example, a decline in the average duration of a visit over a month or quarter may indicate that your content is stale and needs to be updated to retain people's interest.

On the other hand, a report showing an increase in the average time spent per visit indicates that visitors are interested in the content of your site.

Page Views
Page Views show the number of successful requests for pages logged during the specified report period.

When considered with other reports, Page Views also help you identify potential problems. For example, you may find that despite an increase in visits, Page Views are declining. This may indicate that your Internet marketing efforts are drawing people to your site, but that site design or content is not keeping them.

Page Views per Visit
Page Views per Visit tracks the average number of pages viewed per visit to your website and can help you spot changes in the level of interest. For example, you can use a monthly or quarterly report to test whether changes to your site's navigational structure and content are translating into an increase in the average number of pages viewed in a visit. An increase in the average indicates that people are staying longer once they reach your site.

On the other hand, a decrease in Page Views per Visit may indicate a problem with the structure or content of your site. Improving your most popular entry page may increase the number of pages your visitors view.

Entry Pages
Entry Pages show which pages visitors request when first accessing your website. This can help you identify which pages are of particular interest to your visitors. Pages listed that are not the expected entry points, may indicate pages on your website users consider important enough to bookmark. These entry points may also indicate which banner ads and other links are working to bring customers to your site.

If you know which pages are of interest to your customers, you can redesign your site to improve navigation to other pages with content that may be of similar interest.

Exit Pages
Exit Pages show which pages are the last pages requested by a visit to your site. If you have designed your site to draw customers into your site, then the default page, home page, main menus and popular gateways should appear as your least common exit pages. Download pages, purchase pages, and pages with links to other sites should appear as your common exit points.

Monitoring Exit Pages can help you evaluate the content and design of your site. For example, if a large number of customers leave after viewing your site's home page, you may need to update the page's content or provide better links to other parts of your site.

You may also consider whether links to other websites are directing potential customers away from your site.

Referrers or Referring Sites
The Referring Sites report shows which domains besides search engines have sent visitors to your website and can help you evaluate the effectiveness of your efforts in establishing inbound links to your website.

Strategies to increase the number of inbound links to your website are in my previous article, “More Website Visitors thru Inbound Links.”

Referrals by Search Engine
Referrals by Search Engine shows which search engines have sent visitors to your website and is one useful tool in monitoring your search engine optimization efforts.

Keywords
Keywords show the keywords visitors used on search engines to reach your website. This can be a valuable tool in your search engine optimization efforts by showing what keywords or phrases to concentrate on and thus improve the likelihood that a similar search will result in additional site visitors.

To learn more about keyword selection for your site pages, see my previous article, “Search Engine Optimizing Your Website Pages.”

Geographic Reports
Various geographic reports show visitors broken down by state, country or even continent.

This information can help determine the effectiveness of your out-of-state marketing efforts. In the case of foreign visitors to your website, this may also determine if there is enough interest to justify launching a foreign language version of your site.

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Every site owner hopes to get the most from his or her website investment. Unfortunately, while many understand the importance of actively monitoring their stock, bond, or real estate investments, they fail to see the need to regularly assess the performance of their website investment.

I hope after reading this, you’ll not only understand the importance of measuring your site’s performance, but the meaning of those data points as well.

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