While there are a number of different site tracking programs, most work similarly (see "Web Site Visitor Tracking" in the August 2001 issue of Sounding Line). They analyze your site's log files and present the data in an easy-to-understand layout. They also allow you to look at data presented in a variety of ways, e.g., the number of visitors, pages viewed, referrers, and so forth.
That's all very well, but how do you draw conclusions from the information? And, how do you then use that information to improve your Web site? The examples presented here are from Urchin, a program that resides on my Web server and is accessed through my browser, but most statistics programs should offer similar information. Urchin lets you see statistics for a variety of time periods: the entire year, the month, the week, the day, or a range of dates. All of these can be interesting, but for changes over time, I find a month-by-month comparison most useful. When you are featuring a special offer or have just sent a mass e-mail linking to a certain page, you'll want to look at the statistics more often, of course.
Making all that data make sense
One feature of Urchin that I find particularly useful is the ability to export and import data into an Excel spreadsheet for further analysis.
When I view the most frequently visited pages, they are listed in order by number of hits. While this lets me see which pages are getting the most traffic, I find it more useful to sort the pages by name. That lets me see what is happening with related pages. For example, one client has three distinct main areas of his Web site. Fortunately, pages for each area were named similarly, so that after grouping by name, it is easy to see what is happening in each of those areas as a whole. Planning your site navigation and organization, carefully naming pages, and creating sub-directories where appropriate can make analyzing site statistics much easier.
After sorting by name, group the pages appropriately. There will be "pages" listed, such as your style sheets, which will have more hits than any other pages, but not be meaningful in relation to actual visitor usage. Additionally, there will be server pages listed (such as any starting with "/_vti_bin/shtml"). Some will show forms that were processed, but others simply represent access by the Webmaster or even the statistics program. You might want to cut and paste those listings into a separate area of the spreadsheet so that you can concentrate on the primary HTML pages.
See where you need to make changes
The Sounding Line Web site underwent a makeover in May and became active June 1. As a part of the makeover, we looked at which pages had not been getting much traffic (visitor interest) and dropped them. And we added some pages to allow us to clarify our message in certain areas. For example, the old site listed Sounding Line's benefits for agents, vendors, companies, and associations together on one page. We wanted to expand that information and make it easier to read, so we decided to break it into four separate pages accessed from the top menu bar. After only a month, we noted that those pages were getting a lot of traffic. Based on that level of interest, we added subscription links to those pages to allow visitors an immediate link to order a subscription without having to search the navigation menu.
If you are paying attention to your site (and you really should be), you will want to make changes based on which areas draw the most (and least) interest. That's not only based on whether a page was "hit," but also on whether the response you hoped for was actually generated. If, for example, 100 people visit a page with a homeowners application form, but you only receive three forms that were actually filled out and submitted, you'll want to figure out why. Maybe the form is too complicated or the visitor didn't understand what to do. Perhaps the visitor unknowingly overlooked a "required" field.
A possible solution? If the form is long, you could offer a shorter version with an introductory message such as: "We'll be happy to help you with your application for homeowner's insurance. Please give us some preliminary information and let us know how you'd like to be contacted. We will contact you within 24 hours." Fields for name, phone, address, email and checkboxes for contact choices (telephone, mail, or e-mail) should be enough to get you started with the potential client. You can always offer the longer form with an introduction like: "To obtain a full Homeowners Quotation, please provide us with as much of the information requested below as possible. You will be contacted by one of our agents before the end of the next business day."
Browsers, referrers, and keywords
What if you built a Web site and nobody came? It happens far too often. While it is possible for spiders and robots to eventually find your site, you can give them some help by registering your site (see November 2001 Sounding Line). If you take a look at the "Browsers" area of Urchin, you can see, as you'd expect, which browsers your visitors are using. But here is where you also can find out whether your site is being spidered. If you see items like "Googlebot," "LNSpiderguy," "Openfind data gatherer," "Openbot," or "ah ha.com crawler" on the list, you know your site is being found by search engines. It might take a while for the results to be incorporated into their database and show up in search results, but it is reassuring to know that you're being found.
In July, for example, Googlebot browsed 70 pages of the Sounding Line site while other spiders only looked at one or two pages. That is an indication of the depth that they search and, since most only search one page, shows the importance of your home page in providing enough information for search engines. If your home page consists of a Flash presentation, there won't be much for a search engine to gather or links to other pages to be spidered. Therefore, if you must have a Flash page at your home URL, you might want to register the "main" page of your site (the one with navigation links and information about your agency, services, products, etc.) instead.
Knowing about "Referrers" can be useful, too. If you have exchanged links with other sites, you'll be able to see how much traffic is coming your way from them. You'll probably find that most visitors will come with no referral. That means they typed in your URL directly or responded to an e-mail link.
Since searches are based on keywords, it is interesting to know which keywords are being used to find your site. Make sure that higher-rated keywords are in your meta tags as well as the text on your home page. While some of the search engines go deeper into the site than just the home page and will pick up keywords on your other pages, your home page is the place to concentrate most of your effort in developing a title, description, keywords, and copy that succinctly reflects what your site is about. Statistics will show whether or not you have succeeded.
Tracking
Top entrance and exit pages, click-throughs (where the visitor went from a page), length of visit (how long a visitor stayed at the site), and depth of visit (how many pages a visitor viewed) are included in the "Tracking" section of Urchin.
The screenshot on page 9 shows length of visit. Our traffic chart showed 1,585 total visitors for this week so far. As you can see, most of the visits (1,466) lasted only 0-10 seconds. While that means that some visitors dropped in and realized it wasn't what they were looking for and immediately left, some of those visits are spiders — that's good! — and it doesn't take them long to grab the information they want. If we look at those who stayed from one minute to more than 30 minutes, the largest group spent 3 to 10 minutes. That is enough time to read a few pages pretty thoroughly or glance at most of the pages on this particular site.
This type of information is interesting, but requires more analysis to determine what action you should take.
Conclusion
Most Web hosts offer some kind of statistics package. You need all the information you can get to make the most of your Web site. If you don't receive at least a monthly report from your host, request one. Remember, there is no advantage to a static Web presence that you cannot monitor. If you've taken the time to build a site, take time to work your site as well.
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