Understanding website usage

Once you have a web statistics package available to analyse your web logs, it can be used to provide valuable data on your site traffic and usage, which in turn can help you to improve your site and your online marketing activity.

The data provided by web analytics from server log files can answer a wealth of questions, such as:

• Which sites referred users to your website?
• Which search engines are producing the most traffic for your site?
• How many repeat visitors does your website attract?
• What path do users take when navigating through your site?
• Which parts of your site do users exit from frequently?

Many people pay a great deal of attention to these figures, but they can often be disrupted by issues such as user caching, dynamically generated pages, frames and firewalls.

Different packages use a variety of methods to get round these inaccuracies, meaning that it is also difficult to compare statistics between packages. However log files and web analytics packages are very useful for monitoring trends over time.

Issues to consider

• Do you have a specific question you want to answer or you just want to develop an overview of how your website is being used
• How can you use web analytics packages and log files to produce valid meaningful statistics to answer these questions

How The Web Marketing Workshop can help

Testing and measuring website usage requires an objective, methodical approach in order to get meaningful results. If you have a specific problem that needs solving or want to explore how you can move your website forward, contact us to find out more about how we can help identify problems as well as suggest and implement solutions.

If you feel you could be getting more from your website through a better understanding of your users, contact us now for more information or request our FREE 30-minute marketing report.