This article appeared in the April edition of In Touch In Business magazine.

Website statistics are an endless source of joy, wonder and mystery. Many website operators love to look at them, check the totals, admire the rises and lament the falls. They are the most important tool in online marketing toolbox. Carefully analysing a website’s statistical data allows unique and acute insight unparalleled by any other media. Through understanding the statistics a website can be in a constant state of improvement based on measured, proven observations.

All web hosting companies have statistics software running on the websites they host, so first thing to do is find out how to access these. Hosting stats are often very basic, and sometimes lack the detailed information required for a thorough analysis, but they’re good enough to get started.

Most people are keen to see how many people have visited their website, and are often shocked at how high the number is! The number which is most interesting to look for is the number of unique visitors that have visited a website. This number represents the people visiting a website within a given timeframe, usually a month. By comparing the number of unique visitors for each month over the course of a year seasonal trends can easily be seen allowing comparison with the same season in previous years.

Keywords are the next most exciting part of website statistics. These are the words people have typed into a search engine to find a website. Compare these against a list of desired keywords to see where the website might need more optimisation and content.

The most startling thing about examining a keywords stats list for the first time is that for most websites 80% of the traffic comes from keywords that have only been searched once, or twice. It is this reason that internet marketing experts encourage businesses to include more pages on a website, and to write articles, newsletters and blogs in order to capture the many highly relevant website visitors who search for niche and specific things.

Search engines and link partners which have sent visitors to a website are referrers. Most businesses will see Google as their top referrer, and this reflect Google’s position as having the lion share of search traffic within Australia. Websites which have unique content, and have actively sought quality link partners will see many websites in their referrer lists.

Quick Statistical Analysis

Monitor keywords by grouping them into themes. Compare the performance of these themes between months, checking changes against the number of enquiries, bookings or sales the website received. Using this method will quickly establish which themes are the ones that make money.

Monitor referring websites that deliver significant amounts of traffic and observe fluctuations. This is particularly important where online advertising is being paid for. Consider talking to referring webmasters about fluctuations in traffic, especially if a spike in sales has been experienced during this period. In the same way, pay close attention to new websites that have recently become referrers.

When comparing analyses to previous years, be sure to check against the season to observe trends.

Acting On Analysis

Sometimes analysing stats reveal the website advertising that isn’t working. Ensure you check how much traffic you’re receiving from any paid advertising and report this to sales staff when you’re asked to renew your advertising. Don’t be swayed by any numbers of ‘hits’ or visitors the website might claim to receive. What matters is how much traffic you receive from the advertising.

Changes in country demographic groups are easy to monitor, and quite interesting to investigate. Check to ensure website customers match target demographics of the business, otherwise changes to the website text might be in order.

Observing which keywords are working well, and which you don’t have a presence for. Specifically target the flagging keywords by improving the text content of the website. The search engines will only rank a website for words which exist strongly within the text.

A cleaver way to use stats is to identify downward or upward changes in traffic that will cause an unexpected change in sales trends. This allows for the swift introduction of pay-per-click advertising to boost sales numbers, where necessary.

Statistics Software

While hosting stats are quick and easy, many people prefer the deeper information that can be gathered from beefy statistics software such as Google Analytics.

Google’s software is completely free to use and install, and has strong customisable features which allow you to exactly track sales and enquiries to the city of origin, the keywords searched for within a search engine or the referring website. It also links with pay-per-click advertising programs such as Google AdWords.

Although Google Analytics is free, a web developer will need to install it. This will take between 30m – 2 hours depending on the level of customisation required.

Many business owners don’t get the chance to even give their website statistics a cursory glance, but serious web businesses will spend hours each month pouring over the numbers and tweaking their website for maximum results.