Using Your Web Stats for SEO: Getting the Most from your Web Stats
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People often ask why they need to analyze web statistics instead of just using actual search engine results as the basis for success. The answer is very simple. Our goal is not just making it to the top of the search engine results, nor is it only to increase traffic. We need to bring qualified traffic to our sites. Once we attract the targeted traffic, we need those visitors to make a purchase, or take the action we want them to.
This three-part article will cover the basics of web stats, how to read them, what they mean, how to analyze where your traffic is coming from, going to, and leaving from. Then we will cover more in depth on how to effectively use them for search marketing, how sticky pages are, as well as how well the search engine spiders are crawling your site. We will also look at some tips on how to capture those visitors as potential customers, and help analyze why those potential customers either signup or buy, and why they do not.
In order to effectively track your rank in the search engines, you need to know about web stats. Every webmaster has viewed his or her web statistics from time to time. Some do it religiously every day; some every hour. Some, however, have no idea what they are looking at, or what it may mean for them. Still others do not feel it’s important at all. In the search marketing arena, web stats are a vital part of SEO. Let’s start with the basics.
The Basics: What are web stats?
Web stats are the statistics of website activity, or data that is logged by your web server that can be analyzed and turned into reports. Every page or request results in a logged entry. This data can include information about visitors, like IP addresses, name of the requested file, date and time the file was requested, and so forth. Theses logged entries are extremely useful when you are comparing trends for your website over periods of time, and even how you can improve certain areas of your site to make it more attractive to both search engines and potential customers.
How to read your stats and what they mean.
There are many statistics measured in your web stats program, either a script you installed, or provided by your web host. Some of these may seem self explanatory, or things you already know, but pointing out how they can improve your marketing efforts is what I want to concentrate on today, as well as how multiple results of combined stats can truly make a difference in how well your website is going and what needs to be changed.
There are five areas of interest in web statistics: Traffic, Referrers, Search Engines, Errors, and Visitor information. Many of these overlap, and some need to be used in conjunction with other stats in order to give you a better birds-eye view of what trends you should be following.
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