Web log stats: what to check
You work hard at your website: content creation, new features, new online tools, marketing. You need to know what works and what does not work and to drop those types of activities that do not bring the expected progress.
How do you know what works? How do you measure the progress of your web site?
The most important indicator is your bank account – you can see the progress checking your earnings with the affiliate networks or from other revenue sources (depends on the type of the website you run).
Another way that provides you with more food for analysis is your website logs. Web stats allow you to have more accurate visitor information like unique visitors, page views, visitor geo location, referrers, etc. instead of just information like hits.
As a rule, you have a free web stats program supplied by your hosting provider. Two free programs I use:
- AWStats – Free log file analyzer for advanced statistics
- Google Analytics
There are many more free and paid web log stats programs to choose from
What indicators should you pay special attention to studying web logs? It depends on the type of the website you run and your goals. Here is the list of indicators you should control depending on the website type:
CONTENT WEBSITE:
Conversion Rates: the likelihood users will sign up with you, subscribe, register or ask to receive information.
Length of Visit/Average Time Spent on Site: this metric helps measure your goal of wanting to increase the amount of time users spend on the site during a given visit
Average Page Views: the number of pages the visitor visited can indicate the strength of your visitor’s connection to the information you provide
Percent Returning Visitors: percentage of retained visitors returning to your site
Average subscription length
Active subscriber base (based on different time weekly, monthly, etc depending on model)
Visits per month (or quarter or week).
RSS Syndication
Blog Stats: (ie. Technorati, Digg etc)
E-COMMERCE WEBSITE:
Conversion Rate: the likelihood of successfully driving a visitor to purchase.
Cost Per Visitor: the cost of each site visitor to your business.
Average Order Value/Size
Percent New Visitors: the number of potential new customers landing on your site each month. Are these visitors qualified? What stage of the buying funnel are they in?
Ratio of New to Returning Visitors: the ratio of new to previously acquired visitors as well as a measure of customer loyalty and repeat online business.
Page “Stickiness”: the likelihood of successfully retaining a visitor who arrives at a key landing page
Customer Life Time Value: the likelihood that satisfied customers will tell their friends resulting in an increase in online/offline sales. This is more intangible and may be difficult to track.
Add/View Items in Cart: as well as cart abandonment
Conversion Path Analysis: how are users converting on the site?
New Account Signups: how much time and money are these new account signups spending on your site?
LEAD GENERATION WEBSITE:
New Account Signups
Percent New Visitors: the number of potential new customers landing on your site
Conversion Rates: the percentage of visitors that download white papers, sign up for mailings, subscribe to a newsletter, etc.
Ratio of Leads to Close: the likelihood a lead will complete the transaction – this is an offline ratio
Length of Visit: the amount of time a visitor spends on your site in a given visit
Ratio of New to Returning Visitors: the ratio of new to previously acquired visitors
Page “Stickiness”: the likelihood of successfully retaining a visitor who arrives at a key landing page (usually a PPC landing-page or product information page)
Percent of Visits by Entry Page: measures the efficacy of your marketing messages at driving visitors to the site
Conversion by Campaigns
Ad Clicks: measures how successful your PPC campaign is
Drivers to the Registration Process
Site Abandonment
Summary: How often do you need to check your weblogs? It is up to you. I check them on a monthly basis. If I implement any sort of a marketing campaign on a particular website I check the effect at that time – web log programs provide nearly real time stats.
[tags]web logs, web log stats, web log analyzer, log analysis, website logs, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, make money online, home based job, earn your living online[/tags]
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