The web stats you should be looking for and analysing are …..
- No of Unique visitors
- No of visits = returning visitors
- Where visitors are coming from
- Length of time spent on your site – goal = 2 minutes
- No of Page Views – which pages are being viewed more often; where are your visitors exiting – fix these pages, particularly if it’s the call to action page – eg buying, downloading, etc
- Bounce rate = visitors landing and clicking away quickly – needs to be low. High = there’s something wrong with your site eg taking too long to download; not what was expected eg incorrect keywords used (misleading); difficult to navigate; too busy, etc
- How are visitors arriving on your site eg which search engine, social media, mobile, etc
You can get this information from …..
- your webhost
- access to a control panel from your webhost; or
- sign up to Google Analytics for free and insert the code onto your site.
With all the cyber hacking taking place, I also like to check the IP addresses of my visitors, particularly the bandwidth usage they’re using. As my website is targeting English speaking visitors, it becomes very clear which IP addresses are ‘trolling’ their spybots in my website. Consequently, through the free iThemes Security plugin I have installed, I’m able to ban these IP addresses.
I use a control panel together with Google Analytics because the results will be more accurate. The control panel pulls the web stats from all the search engines, whereas Google Analytics pulls only the web stats from Google. However, if you don’t have access to a control panel, you can rely on the Google Analytics web stats because Google, being the largest search engine, can give you valuable indications.
With my control panel, I have all the information I’ve mentioned plus the days and times when visitors are on my site – which is very helpful when timing my email marketing campaigns.
I’d love to have your input and questions … as I’m sure many others would, so let’s have your comments below.
To your continued success!