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SEO Basics: Using Site Stats to Track Your Results
By SherryD | March 1, 2010
Topics: seo basics |
8 Comments »
A business plan is what is used to help you, the business owner, map out where you foresee your sales to be going from one year to the next. For businesses online, website statistics are used for this purpose. Website statistics measure the different business related activities that occur on your website. Using site stats to track your results is one of the SEO basics that site owners use to grow their online business.
Site Statistics
It’s all about traffic. Without traffic to your website there are no sales and your business will not grow. While a marketing plan may be used to guide you through steps to take that will increase the traffic visiting your website it isn’t foolproof.
Unless you are able to measure the results produced by your efforts, you have no way of knowing what is working and what is not. This is where using site stats to measure your results comes into play. Here are a few examples:
1. Unique And Returning Visitors – In order to grow your traffic, you want to know that the number of unique and returning visitors is increasing. Unique visitors are people that are visiting your website for the first time.
When they arrive, it is then up to your website to convince them to stay to find out more about what is offered and also return to remain updated on any changes made. Growth in the number of returning visitors shows that your ability to convince new visitors is working.
2. Keyword Tracking Analysis – Site stats provide you with information on which keywords are attracting visitors to your website and which are not, helping you to better optimize your site and focus any advertising efforts.
3. Visitor Conversion Tracking – This is the measurement of how many of your visitors take the step from just reading your content to the one of purchasing your products. This measurement once again shows you which efforts are paying off and which need to be refined or removed.
4. Web Page Analysis – Did you know that it is possible to track a visitor’s progress through your website and see whether they have viewed any pages in addition to the one they landed on? This type of analysis provides you with added information on what your visitors are interested in.
5. Tracking Page Views – The ability to determine which pages receive the most traffic.
These are just a sample of a few of the statistics that can be gathered from the traffic visiting your website. These statistics help you to determine which of your marketing efforts receive the best response and which have a negative effect or no effect at all. When testing changes, keep an eye out for fluctuations in related stats.
Because statistics are generally gathered on a monthly basis, it can take several months to recognize trends or results from changes made. Trends are an indication of the way your marketing plans are shaping up. The lag time involved means that it may take several months for these trends to appear on a consistent basis and requires patience on the part of the website owner to allow for this development time.
Frequent changes are not recommended for purely testing purposes. Changes made will skew the results making it difficult to determine what is working. The amount of traffic being analyzed needs to be factored into the equation. A site with low traffic volumes will need more time to reveal accurate trends.
Site stats provide a snapshot of activity in a given time frame. Without this ability, you are unable to measure the results of any changes or added marketing efforts you make. Working without stats is akin to shooting an arrow into the dark and hoping it will hit its intended target. You have no means of correcting your aim. While not foolproof, using site stats to measure your results will give you a more reliable insight into where changes can be made to improve your business efforts.
Using site stats to measure website performance is a key component in SEO basics. There are many software tools (both free and paid) available to help you compile these stats. There are also many companies that can be hired who are able to measure this information for you and provide you with an analysis of the results, but for most smaller website owners, a good analysis software program will be all that is needed.
Are you using a software program to help you gather site stats to track your marketing efforts? Leave a comment and share the programs that you find helpful so that others may learn from your experience.
To Your Success,
SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com
8 Responses to “SEO Basics: Using Site Stats to Track Your Results”
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March 3rd, 2010 at 2:22 am
Yes i think SEO is really necessary to get index your website on first page of major search engines and to get a lot of back links, and for link building as well.
March 4th, 2010 at 10:37 am
I absolutely agree – measuring is alpha and omega and with the tools and technologies available for investigating web site traffic there is no excuse for not doing so. There are incredible potentials in going into details with site stats.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
Your blog is pretty good and impressed me a lot. This article along with the images is quite in-depth and gives a good overview of the topic.
April 16th, 2010 at 5:53 am
I enjoyed reading your interesting yet very informative insights. I am looking forward to reading more of your most recent articles and blogs
April 22nd, 2010 at 11:28 pm
I learn the basics of php, mysql , javascript in net. with this knowledge i am working(for this company) with sites to creating forms using php, mysql, phpmyadmin, java script. i try to search for another company for php programmer or here i learn seo and working with seo.
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April 23rd, 2010 at 2:29 am
Thanks for this post, its convincing me to thoroughly monitor my site.
I am keen on using google analytics for tracking traffic on my website. I’ll be happy to use a new one if there is
April 26th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Monitoring your website visitors browsing habits is essential to providing a website that people want to use. The more you understand your target audience, the more you can tailor your content towards them.
May 11th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Basically any kind of business should be involved by business plan , especially good tips you described in your article, as you called it online website statistics, i absolutely agree. But i think good financial plan is also important, you know financial statement for one year, it fits great, i use it , and i am satisfied . I control all the situation. But truly i agree with all your points.
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