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Mining For Gold
...In
Your Web Traffic Logs
General Statistics
Most and Least Requested
Pages
Top Entry and Exit Pages
Single Access Pages
Most Active Countries and
Cities
Top Referring Sites / URL’s /
Search Engines
Top Search Keywords and
Phrases
Conclusion
Understanding your Web site’s traffic patterns is
a crucial component of your marketing mix. The
information in these logs is collected as visitors
find and move around your site at their own volition.
So, it’s “market research that cannot lie” -
and therefore provides unprecedented insights that can
help you to strategize not only for the future
development of the site itself, but also for your
overall business and marketing plan.
I’ll describe the most important sections of the log
report when analyzing your site’s marketing
effectiveness. Often, deciding what’s right and
what’s a problem is a gut feel that you’ll develop by
looking at your log reports over a period of weeks or
months, by trying some new tactics, and observing the
trends and results.
General Statistics
This introductory section shows the overall traffic
to the site, including the number of actual visitors,
as opposed to “hits”. This is an important
distinction - one hit is generated for every page and
every individual image that a visitor requests (e.g. a
page with some text and five pictures will take six
hits to download). So, the ratio of hits to
individual visitors can be quite high.
By the way, it’s also important for you to appreciate
this distinction if you are selling advertising space
on your site. You may be asked by a potential
advertiser to prove your traffic levels, and if you
happily say “millions of hits”, they may look
suspicious!
This section also shows the average time spent on the
site, which should give some indication as to how
engaging it is. If your site is rich in content, but
the time spent on it is relatively low, it may not be
meeting the needs of the visitors it is attracting, or
it may be targeted at the wrong audience.
I had a client who earlier this year placed #1 in
some major search engines. He was ecstatic! But his
site had not been worked on for some time, and was
very dry and boring. We discovered from his logs that
the average time spent on his site was less than two
minutes - obviously indicating a problem. And to make
my point again, without this evidence from the logs,
he would have continued to believe that his site was
successful.
[Table of Contents]
Most and Least
Requested Pages
The most requested pages are a great barometer of the
“hot” areas of your site, and thus the most popular
aspects of your online products or services. These
may be different from your original expectations, and
so this information can be very valuable for overall
business development decisions.
If the least requested pages (i.e. the ones that
attract the fewest visitors) contain important
content, then something’s wrong. Usually, it’s either
that their content is not interesting to your markets
after all, or that the site is not driving your
traffic to these pages in ways that are attractive.
[Table of Contents]
Top Entry and Exit Pages
If the inside pages of your site are well promoted in
the search engines, there should be a number of top
entry pages (i.e. the first page that the visitor
sees), in addition to the home page. This is a good
reminder to include clear navigation back to other
areas of the site from every page, to ensure
that the first-time visitor gets a complete picture of
your offerings.
The top exit pages are also an indication of your
site’s effectiveness - if these are not the right
places for most visitors to leave from, some
adjustments are needed. Make sure that every page of
your site has an objective, and that you clearly
direct the visitor to the next page or to the action
that you wish them to take.
[Table of Contents]
Single Access
Pages
These are pages that a visitor views, and leaves
without exploring any further. Typically, this will
be the home page, and I am often asked whether this is
an issue. I usually give the standard consultant’s
answer: “It depends . . .”
Your home page should quickly show the different
audiences for your site that they’ve come to the right
place for what they want, and where to go to find it.
So you might have sections for members, prospective
members, journalists, consumers, etc. The home page
should do enough to engage them, and send them on to
the appropriate inside pages.
If the home page does a good job of this, there will
probably be some visitors who came to your
site by mistake, in which case they will leave
immediately. But that’s OK - they aren’t the right
traffic for you.
It’s really your judgment call as to what constitutes
a problem. But, that client I mentioned earlier whose
visitors spent less than two minutes on his site also
had about 85% single access figures on his home page -
some things are obvious!
A splash entry page to your site (i.e. one that says
“Welcome, enter here”, but with little or no actual
content) will often also show large single access
figures. Although these pages can look very striking,
they unfortunately tend to be unpopular with impatient
surfers. I’ve seen splash pages that have lost one
third of a site’s visitors. If you have a splash
page, check the single access figures for it in your
logs, and be prepared to remove it without hurting the
feelings of your Webmaster!
[Table of Contents]
Most Active Countries
and Cities
If your site is aimed at an international audience,
this section will show which country visitors
originate from. This information can be useful in
making decisions such as providing pages in languages
other than English.
The most active cities report is unfortunately very
misleading, as it relies on the registered location of
the Internet Service Provider. Most log reports
therefore show very disproportionate visitor numbers
from Virginia - the home of America Online!
[Table of Contents]
Top Referring Sites / URL’s / Search
Engines
These are the Web pages that send visitors to your
site. The largest figure here will usually be the “No
referrer”, showing people coming directly to the
site. This means that they are typing in your URL, or
have your site bookmarked, and implies that your other
forms of marketing are working.
The log reporting program should display other Web
pages that send you traffic as html links, allowing
you to click on the URL (when online!) to see the
originating page. This will show the effectiveness of
your reciprocal links or paid advertising. You will
also be able to see other sites that are linking to
you. It’s worth checking these out if you aren’t
familiar with them - either to thank them, or to check
that their link to you is appropriate.
For search engine referrals, clicking on the link
will resubmit the search, and allow you to evaluate
competitors’ sites and positioning relative to yours.
It’s also possible to review keywords that are
bringing traffic from one particular source, and to
try to improve the site’s performance for those words
in other search engines.
[Table of Contents]
Top Search Keywords and
Phrases
This is crucial information, as it shows exactly what
people were looking for when they came to your site.
Often Web site marketers take their best guess at
these keywords on their first design, but because the
search engines index every word on all your pages,
other terms can be found, especially in a content rich
site.
So the most popular search phrases can tell you
what’s really “hot” in your products and services.
Understanding these is another great key to
understanding the current needs of your site’s
market(s), and making business strategy and
development decisions. One of my clients recently
decided to write a book on a topic area that, until
she saw her logs, she had no idea was so sought-after.
[Table of Contents]
Conclusion
There are other sections in the log report,
especially around the technical data for your site.
The pieces that I have covered here are the
significant ones for marketers. If you don’t have
this information available, I really urge you to get
it, and review it - I guarantee that you’ll find some
gold nuggets!
© 2006, Philippa Gamse. All rights reserved.
Byline
Philippa Gamse, CyberSpeaker, is a Web strategy
consultant and professional speaker. Check out her
free tipsheet for 23 ideas to promote your Website
"Beyond the Search Engines":
http:/
/www.CyberSpeaker.com/tipsheet.html Philippa can
be reached at (831) 325-3307 or
mailto:pgamse@Cyb
erSpeaker.com
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©2008 Philippa
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