Why Webstats are so important

I love web statistics (especially Google Analytics!).  They highlight how many people come to your site, what they are viewing and how long they are staying.

 When was the last time you viewed your statistics?

Some businesses don''t look at their web statistics at all which means they have a limited perception on how their site is working and what revenue it is generating.

So what are the key statistics you should know about your website?

Hits : I want to really clear up the term "hits".  1 single hit means that a user has downloaded one file from your website. So if your home page has 10 images on it, as soon as a user visits your home page (i.e. www.yourcompany.com.au) this will generate 11 hits, 10 hits for the images and 1 hit for the actual home page itself.

Saying my site generated 10,000 hits last month might sound impressive but this doesn't really equate to a physical number of people.  If the each page contains on average 5 images, and each user visits 3 pages - this would equate to around just over 650 visitors per month or 22 per day.  Take out the search engine crawlers and again this figure will fall lower.

So what statistic's DO we need?

• Unique Visitors - unique visitors means that each person visiting the site is unique.
• Average time spent - average time of what each visitor spends on the site.
• While 10,000 hits doesn't mean anything, 300 unique visitors (and an average 3 mins per visit) means that 300 people per month spend an average of 3 minutes on your site -  that is a real statistic!

Other really important statistics such as:

• Top / Popular Pages - what are the most popular pages on your site
• Geography - which countries / regions users are visiting your site from
• Referrals - which sites are sending users to your site

The best thing about your website and online campaigns, such as email marketing and search engine advertising, is that you can use statistics to clearly identify what your return on investment is for your website.  Taking a look at your web statistics should form a vital part of your marketing and sales strategy.