How To Track All Your Website Visitors
Do you know:
* Exactly how many people are visiting your
website?
* How long they're staying on your site before
they move on?
* Exactly where those visitors are coming
from, each day?
* How much of your website traffic is repeat
visitors?
* The exact paths people take as they click
their way through your website?
Here's what i'm getting at:
If you don't know your visitors, it makes it
*very* difficult for you to improve the
performance of your website and turn more
visitors into customers - AND - get more
quality traffic. For the simple reason that
you're effectively working blind.
Without knowing how people visit your site and
what they do on your site, any attempts at
growing your traffic and improving the
profitability of your website is working with
one armed tied behind your back, at least.
And unfortunately - the web stats that come
with your web-hosting are generally not
enough these days.
Depending on your web host, chances are
you've either got Webalizer, Analog Stats, or
AWStats installed on your server. Here's how
that software works:
It takes the "raw" (unreadable to the human
eye) information your web server stores of
everyone that visits and presents this in an
easy to understand way.
Unfortunately, due to a number of technical
reasons, this information is often presented in
quite an inaccurate way.
And in my personal experience, these software
packages don't present this information in a
particularly helpful way either for someone
trying to improve the conversion ratios and
profitability of their website.
What i personally do, and what i would suggest
you do is use a "Tracking Solution" that
accurately tracks and reports all your visitors
in an easy to read and understand way. These
solutions come in two forms: Software &
Services
Both these options have their pros and cons,
but what they both do very well is present
exactly what's happening on your website right
up to the minute, and in a way that's very
helpful to you for making good (and
profitable) decisions for your business.
To start with here's a software solution you
can install and use for free on your website:
Now before you go and install it, you should
of course be familiar with installing software
on your server. If you're not comfortable
installing software on your website, a tracking
service (which i'll come to in a moment) would
probably be best for you.
And it's also important to note that installing
software on your website can often put more
strain on the server. This is particularly true
if you're on shared hosting.
i've personally used the following free tracking
software and it works well. see what you
think. Go to http://www.curve2.com and look
for "TrackPro". As i write this, version 2 is in
Beta and is downloadable from the site at the
following address: http://www.curve2.com/
trackpro.php
You'll also find many further free tracking
software solutions at http://
www.hotscripts.com.
But personally speaking, what i've found works
very well and avoids putting any increased
strain on my existing websites is using a third
party tracking service.
The only things really to worry about when
using a third party service are:
* How long will this service be around? (If
they stop their service after a year, you
wouldn't be able to access your past data and
will have to change all your tracking codes on
your pages too.)
* What is their privacy policy regarding my web
stats? (Are they honest and trustworthy in
other words. You don't want the service
owners studying and then duplicating your
successful business plan.)
Over the past month i've been using
ecommStats (http://www.ecommstats.com).
Now, this service isn't free, but at this time
they give you 50,000 free page views per
domain, and depending how busy your site is
those page views can last you a very long
time.
The service works great and is very easy to
add to your pages -- simply add three lines of
code at the bottom of each of your pages
(you can easily do this with Serve
Do you know:
* Exactly how many people are visiting your
website?
* How long they're staying on your site before
they move on?
* Exactly where those visitors are coming
from, each day?
* How much of your website traffic is repeat
visitors?
* The exact paths people take as they click
their way through your website?
Here's what i'm getting at:
If you don't know your visitors, it makes it
*very* difficult for you to improve the
performance of your website and turn more
visitors into customers - AND - get more
quality traffic. For the simple reason that
you're effectively working blind.
Without knowing how people visit your site and
what they do on your site, any attempts at
growing your traffic and improving the
profitability of your website is working with
one armed tied behind your back, at least.
And unfortunately - the web stats that come
with your web-hosting are generally not
enough these days.
Depending on your web host, chances are
you've either got Webalizer, Analog Stats, or
AWStats installed on your server. Here's how
that software works:
It takes the "raw" (unreadable to the human
eye) information your web server stores of
everyone that visits and presents this in an
easy to understand way.
Unfortunately, due to a number of technical
reasons, this information is often presented in
quite an inaccurate way.
And in my personal experience, these software
packages don't present this information in a
particularly helpful way either for someone
trying to improve the conversion ratios and
profitability of their website.
What i personally do, and what i would suggest
you do is use a "Tracking Solution" that
accurately tracks and reports all your visitors
in an easy to read and understand way. These
solutions come in two forms: Software &
Services
Both these options have their pros and cons,
but what they both do very well is present
exactly what's happening on your website right
up to the minute, and in a way that's very
helpful to you for making good (and
profitable) decisions for your business.
To start with here's a software solution you
can install and use for free on your website:
Now before you go and install it, you should
of course be familiar with installing software
on your server. If you're not comfortable
installing software on your website, a tracking
service (which i'll come to in a moment) would
probably be best for you.
And it's also important to note that installing
software on your website can often put more
strain on the server. This is particularly true
if you're on shared hosting.
i've personally used the following free tracking
software and it works well. see what you
think. Go to http://www.curve2.com and look
for "TrackPro". As i write this, version 2 is in
Beta and is downloadable from the site at the
following address: http://www.curve2.com/
trackpro.php
You'll also find many further free tracking
software solutions at http://
www.hotscripts.com.
But personally speaking, what i've found works
very well and avoids putting any increased
strain on my existing websites is using a third
party tracking service.
The only things really to worry about when
using a third party service are:
* How long will this service be around? (If
they stop their service after a year, you
wouldn't be able to access your past data and
will have to change all your tracking codes on
your pages too.)
* What is their privacy policy regarding my web
stats? (Are they honest and trustworthy in
other words. You don't want the service
owners studying and then duplicating your
successful business plan.)
Over the past month i've been using
ecommStats (http://www.ecommstats.com).
Now, this service isn't free, but at this time
they give you 50,000 free page views per
domain, and depending how busy your site is
those page views can last you a very long
time.
The service works great and is very easy to
add to your pages -- simply add three lines of
code at the bottom of each of your pages
(you can easily do this with Serve
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