Wow, the graph that you just printed out with your website statistics for the previous month looks nice, and some of the numbers are very impressive, but do you really understand what the terminology means and which figures are the most important on your statistics report. Or perhaps you are saying “what are website statistics?” and have never actually printed them out!
First of all we will look at the terminology used in web statistic reports.
Unique Visitors - Is a single individual person that views your website within a specified time period such as a day or a month. Each person visiting your site is counted only once, no matter how many times they visit your website
Number of visits – This is the number of times that your site has been visited. When you compare it with the number of unique visitors, this gives you an idea of the number of people who are returning to your site.
Page - This is a single page of your website, it may be your home (index) page, contact us page, about us or another page within your website.
Hits - a hit is a request made to the server where your website is hosted. Each file that is requested is counted as a hit. For example your home page may be a single .html page with 5 images on it. The number of hits recorded will be 6, as your .html page is one file and each image is also counted as a file. Therefore looking at how many hits that your website has received is not a very good statistical indicator.
Bandwidth – this is the amount of data (measured in megabytes) transferred from your hosts server to an internet user’s computer. E.g. Someone views your home page and on it is text and images that add up to say 2mb, if 50 people view this page then the amount of data transfer would be 100mb. Your web host will specify the amount of bandwidth (data transfer) that your hosting plan includes each month. If you exceed this you will be charged for additional bandwidth. If you have a large site with lots of traffic, keep an eye on this statistic.
Visits Duration – This statistic shows how long people are spending at your site. If they are not staying long you may need to review your content or add an attractor to have them stay longer and view more of your site.
Pages viewed or Pages URL – This statistic shows how many people are visiting each page. You may find you have even traffic visiting each page on your site or maybe that the majority of people are only visiting your home page and not going any further.
Referrers or referring URLS – is the website address where a visitor was before they came to your site. This gives you some idea of the websites or search engines that are referring traffic to your site and is also useful when considering your marketing plan. E.g. you may get some good traffic via Yellow Pages Online, so it may be worthwhile considering including extra in your marketing budget for a slightly higher profile advert.
Search Key phrases and keywords – These are the words and phrases that people are using to find businesses like yours. It is important to take notice of this as it may be good to weave more of the popular words into your content.
Ok – so now you have an idea of the terminology used in your statistic reports, which are the more important stats that you should take notice of.
The statistics that you need to take the most notice of are:
- Unique visitors
- Pages visited
- Referring URLs
- Key phrases and keywords
Understanding your website statistics is important and you do need to keep an eye on them. They can help you direct your marketing plan, alert you to which pages on your website are more popular and which ones need attention, where your traffic is coming from, which keywords people are using from your content and if you need to consider re-writing your content to include more keywords and key phrases.
If you are not sure how to access your website statistics contact your web host or web designer and find out today.
Audio is a powerful yet cost effective marketing tool that can enhance and add value to your website.
Adding an audio message to your website can assist your website visitors in gaining a better understanding of your products or services. Just as a face to face meeting increases the opportunity to sell your products or services, audio on your website creates a bond/rapport with your website visitor.
No longer are you just another website amongst the hundreds or thousands that a prospective client may visit, but your website has a human dimension, a voice, and this assists in making your website visitor feel comfortable and your website appear more professional and trustworthy.
Adding audio to your website also serves as an “attention getter”. By using audio on your website you have the ability to guide your website visitor through your site to featured products or services. Audio is also a powerful motivator, your voice can influence and persuade visitors to explore your website and therefore stay for longer. Audio improves the “stickiness” of your website.
Personal Messages
Adding a personal greeting/introduction or welcome audio message to your website is a great way to introduce yourself, your business, products or services. Website visitors may not read all of your text content or remember what they have read so a personal message increases the chances of them remembering the information about your products or services and remembering your website. Audio also serves to reinforce your sales message.
Audio Testimonials
Once your website visitors have heard what you have to say about your products or services, let them also hear what your customers think about your business. Testimonials are always a great way to add credibility to your business but by adding them as audio content, your website visitors can become more convinced as they hear different voices talk about you and your business.
Instructions
When giving instructions, a lot of people respond better to the spoken word and audio is a valuable tool when creating instructions on your website. You may want to simply guide website visitors through a task such as ordering products or offer short tips or tutorials on your website. Providing instructions as an audio file can make even the most complex written instructions easier to follow. It also prevents you from excluding those people who are auditory not visual learners.
By having the instructions in text on your website you are catering for visual learners, once you add audio you then make it easier for auditory learners to understand and relate to your message as auditory learners find information more meaningful once it is spoken rather than written.
This article was provided by Melissa Norfolk Technology Presentations. Melissa is a professional speaker who speaks to business and community groups on how to use the internet effectively both for searching and also marketing a business online
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