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Having the ability to comprehend web traffic statistics can be vital for webmasters for a variety of reasons. To do this, however, it is important to know how to interpret these reports. This data is available from most web hosting companies. They will provide you with a lot of information that can be pretty overwhelming to decipher at first. It doesn't hurt to understand how to make it apply to the business and website at hand. The first thing to look at is the average number of visitors that land on your website. Take a look at the daily, weekly and monthly figures. These numbers tend to be the most accurate in regard to a particular site's activity level. Be careful not to read too much into the traffic numbers without delving deeper. While it might seem as if the more visitors who go to a site, the better the site is doing, it's not always true. You need to know what visitors do once they get to a site. This is the real measure of effectiveness. A lot of people confuse hits with quality traffic. Hits are nothing more than the number of information requests the server receives. Hits can actually equate to nothing more than the number of graphics on a page. Should, for example, your homepage have 20 pictures on it, the server will record 20 hits for a single visitor looking at that page. This means that hits are not that important when analyzing traffic. The more traffic a site gets, the easier it becomes to get an accurate interpretation of statistics. The lower the number, the more likely it is that the analysis will be distorted somewhat. The key is taking the stats and using them to determine how effective a site is. One number to focus on is the length of time visitors stay on a site. If they don't stay long, there could be a problem. It is very possible that keywords have been selected poorly to attract the right type of visitor to the site. The layout and design might be the issue, too. If it's too confusing or hard to grasp, visitors will likely leave pretty quickly. Time spent averages can help pinpoint problems. If something is tweaked, this same number can be used to see if the effort improved the issue. Traffic stats are also useful for figuring out if certain areas on a site are working as they should. If visitors leave a page too quickly that you think is important, it might be time to improve that page or its incoming links. This works in the converse, too. If a page is getting more attention than you think it deserves, maybe shuffling its content with more important material will help since visitors seem to go there anyway. Web stats are important for any site, but they can be particularly so for those that try to earn money off their pages. Finding out what is wrong and fixing it can turn sales numbers around in a big way. Another place these stats can be important is in regard to exit pages. While you might have designated exit pages, such as order forms, other pages might show up on stats as exit points. These are normal to an extent. If a page that isn't meant to be an exit point shows up too much as one, it might be time to tweak it. Look for weaknesses and try to improve them. Once visitor stats have been closely examined, the next thing to look at is keywords. See which keywords are working to bring in specific kinds of traffic. The more focused and targeted the visitors, the better. If a particular keyword is bringing in traffic that fills out forms, buys or so on, that keyword is very important to your site. If there are a lot of visitors coming in via keywords that aren't central to your theme and they go away fast, work to eradicate them. Good keywords draw in quality traffic. Keywords that pull in people who don't want to be there and result in zero sales or revenue aren't worth using. Stats do help webmasters gauge their site's effectiveness. They can even be used to help one see what areas can be improved on. Read them with care to learn how to best optimize the entire website.
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About the Article Author
Author Jeff Alderson is an expert on search engines and SEO. To increase online traffic, Jeff suggests using a variety of SEO tools and strategies to increase online traffic fast.
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