Traffic stats

Why is it that so many companies seem so disinterested in their traffic stats? This information tells you who is coming to your website, where your site is working (or not), what keywords are leading to your site from the search engines, who has linked to you etc etc etc. If you are ignoring your traffic stats because it just seems too much work to look at them regularly, think again.

Without this information your marketing plan must be operating in the dark. How can you know when a particular press release has worked if you don't look to see how many visitors it encouraged to your site? If you offer e-commerce facilities, how are you tracking whether people are going through the whole process and becoming a customer, or when they are falling off the site halfway through the shopping cart? How do you know when a particular backlink is successful, and therefore target other similar sites? How do you know when there is an influx of customers from a particular country? etc etc

There are a multitude of reasons for keeping an eye on your traffic stats. And for analysing them so you can make your marketing more efficient and cost-effective. This doesn't mean spending hours poring over columns of figures, but at least check that you are getting the most of your marketing spend.

* When you put a press release out or an ad, include a tracker URL (one that is specific to that press release) so you can see the response rate
* Check that the keywords you are spending money on, or have optimised the site for are actually bringing in traffic to the site
* Look and see which countries your visitors are coming from. If you are trying to break into the EU, for example, are your marketing efforts working?
* how long are visitors staying on your site? Is it "sticky" - are they staying for a look round or just leaving after 1 page, 1 minute etc? It is unlikely they will become a customer if they have paid so little attention to what you are telling them!
* is your site traffic increasing over time? Does the increase bear any relation to your spend? In other words, are you getting value for money? Or could you refocus your efforts onto the techniques that are actually working?

If you do just one thing today, it should be to look at your traffic stats... Go on, log into them now.

Has the number of visitors risen in the last 3 months? If so, can you work out why?

Are visitors leaving in droves from a particular page? Can you work out what is wrong with that page?

Are they failing to complete the purchase process? Try it yourself and see if there is anything wrong with it.

How long are people staying on the site? If less than 3 minutes, there is something failing to appeal to them and you need to increase the amount of time people stay on your site by adding interesting and tempting text and information, calls to action etc.

Where are the majority of your referrals coming from? The search engines, links on other sites, forums? Check the links on other sites and forums - make sure everything being said is positive. You never know, there might be people slagging off you and your products out there.

Are the keyword referrals those you expected to see? Or are people searching more frequently on terms you hadn't realised they might search on? If so, add information to your site that captures that traffic more effectively.

What is your top exit page? Take a long hard look at it and work out why.

There, not taken you long has it? And you have undoubtedly learnt several things that you hadn't realised before commencing this exercise. Now, take some action to correct the things that are wrong with your site, and have another look next week to see what the changes are to your stats.