Astonishingly, many online businesses that depend upon the success of their website, do not quantify their online efforts. Without tracking the behaviour of visitors, customers will not be able to measure nor improve their website design and/or search engine optimisation techniques. For those companies who do not regularly monitor and improve their website according to usage, this article outlines the benefits of the different web statistics programs on offer. NetRegistry’s customer service department receives multiple calls regarding statistics services; it seems there are some common misconceptions regarding statistics programs. We hope this article provides clarification.
Web Statistics are log files that measure the behaviour of visitors as well as tracking particular details of your website. These are useful for businesses, as it qualifies aspects of the website which are actively working towards meeting business objectives. For example, highlighting which landing pages most effectively encourage people to purchase an item or create a lead.
NetRegistry offers customers a choice of four, complementary, web analytics packages. At their core, these services analyse the website's usage. Producing numerical and graphical reports based on website traffic, usability, navigation, access and usage logs. Graphical mapping can be presented across different time frames, such as daily, hourly and monthly, however this is dependent on the stats program implemented.
Statistics programs are typically used to effectively measure the success of campaigns, outbound emails, sales and marketing efforts these can be compared with website usage to ascertain its success. A good stats package should also illustrate the path your visitors take within your site, from page to page. This data is invaluable for effectively marketing your site, product or service. For example, the ‘Referring URL Report’ in our stats package ‘AW stats’ determines the specific keywords visitors are searching in Google.
To view website figures and graphically presented statistics, customers simply need to follow two steps:
These stats have extraordinary marketing potential for website designers, developers and business owners alike. They can clearly plot the success of campaigns as well as map the usability of a website.
The central benefits of site statistics are outlined below.
Deciding upon the most relevant stats package involves first determining your needs, as each package provides a range of benefits. Customers have a choice between four entry-level, free packages AW Stats, Webalizer, ReportMagic and Funnel Web. These packages produce configurable numerical and graphical reports, based on your site's traffic. The central difference between these statistics packages is the graphical presentation and user interfaces. Customers are offered a variety, from which their decision will be based on personal preference.
It is worth noting, AW Stats only shows statistics for the current, running month. This could be a problem if customers wish to compare past months online performance.
Statistics commonly reported include:
A web analytics package like Urchin, manages the process of assigning a cookie, which can uniquely identify a user during their visit and in subsequent visits. Urchin offers is a more extensive statistic package, NetRegistry charges $99 for the license.
To best determine which package is best for your business, we recommend a period of rigorous testing when you first employ statistics monitoring. Although it is free for customers to swap stats programs, please be aware you will loose any data recorded from previous months.
With an effectively employed and monitored web statistics package, you will be able to answer pertinent questions such as "Where are my visitors coming from?" or "What pages do my visitors land on, exit on and spend the most time on?"
For more information as well as live examples of each package, click here.