Learn to Read Website Statistics

One of the most underused yet powerful part of every website is the statistics. Now I know that most of you don't read them. Nay, many of you don't even know where to find them.

Now I admit to thinking, like most of you, that rows of number have a very low sex appeal. But if you stop thinking of rows of numbers and start thinking of how all those numbers represent real people who have given you lots of data on themselves that you would otherwise have to pay Roy Morgan 11ty billion dollars for, then suddenly stats become very interesting.

Let's start at the beginning. I will speak broadly because all stats packages vary the way they show the data.

Visitors, Page Views & Hits

The base measurement for every site is the number of visitors. Each visitor is a person - two arms, legs, head and a wallet/purse. A visitor can be unique or a returning visitor. If your shop had 100 people visit this week and 30 of them had been to see you before then you would have had 70 unique (or new) visitors.

Each visitor can then view many pages. If you counted how many products each visitor to your shop looked at that would be the equivalent of page views. Generally more page views are better than less.

Hits are counted every time someone clicks something on your site. Same as if you counted every time every person in your shop poked anything with a mouse (why they would have a mouse in your shop is a whole other question). As an aside (or a second one after that poor mouse joke) when selling cars I found that I had a much better chance of being able to engage a person once they had opened the door of a car to look inside. The act of touching the car was driven by interest and signified the progression of the Dream-Reality-Trade Cycle and an acceptance that the car could well be a solution to their needs. Hits are good because they show interaction with your site and products.

In the early days, webmasters would crow about the number of hits they had but don't get swayed by that number in exclusion. In statistics no number means anything alone. It is in conjunction with 1 or more other pieces of data that meaning is found. Saying a site has had 3,000 people visitors seems impressive until I let on that that is over the last 10 years which works out to 5.77 people per week.

Scenario	Visitors	Unique Visitors	Page Views	Hits	Av. Time On Page
1	1	0	1	50	0:30
2	10	5	30	40	2:35
3	100	70	60	80	0:58

If we assume we wanted to advertise on one of these sites then the numbers in the table above would help us decide which to choose and what approach to take.

Scenario 1 - this site has only 1 set of eyes and it looks like he is a manic rodent at that with all those hits in a short space of time. Probably a poor place to show our wares.

Scenario 2 - this site is obviously very engaging as there are a solid number of new and returning visitors. Page views are good and hits are OK. Time on page is stunning so I would say that users are really interested in this subject. This site is probably very targeted. Advertising here should be focused on exactly what the site is about and not general.

Scenario 3 - a high traffic site with a more general appeal. A lot of new traffic (eyes) with reasonable page times but not so much specialization. Adverts here would probably do better if a bit more general.

See how those numbers suddenly leap into meaningfulness when put onto a context.

Bounce Rate

You will see in the stats above that in Scenario 3 there were 100 visitors but only 60 page views. That means that quite a few of those visitors didn't view any more than one page. Also with a shorter average time on page some of those people left rather quickly. This is in essence the Bounce Rate - these people bounced off the site instead of sticking around. A decent site will have a bounce rate of 20-30%. Higher may mean that people aren't happy with what they see.

Again bounce rate must be considered in conjunction with other data. News.com probably have a massive bounce rate as people go to the first page, see the headlines in the rotating format and leave satisfied.

Content, Entry & Exit Pages

The next thing is to look at what pages people are viewing. Most stats programs will give you a list of pages based on popularity. A page with lots of views is probably more popular than one without. Home is generally the exception as most people will still enter through that page. Over time that is changing so make sure all pages are a good introduction to your business.

If you see pages that you think people should be seeing but aren't then this data will help you to make changes to offer that page more clearly on Home pages and other points where people may want to know that information.

Entry and Exit pages are the pages that people enter your site on and leave from. Just as if your shop had 2 doors, knowing which customers use to come and go can help you to arrange your merchandise and advertising. Please don't panic over exit pages because everyone will leave your site at some time. Just look at the trends. If everyone leaves at your product pages then you know your product is not attractive (or attractively presented). If lots of people leave from your Contact page so they can hop in their cars to come to your shop then you are also doing well.

Some stats packages will allow you to do some tracking of how people move around your site. Please be cautious of this as while that info is very useful, it can be a great distraction if you aren't experienced in dealing with statistics. Remember that statistics work on averages and not on the single. Basing decisions on a singular occurrence could be poor planning.

Traffic Sources

Everyone comes to your site from somewhere. There are 3 main ways that someone can get to your site.

Direct - type www.businessname.com into a browser and there you are. This person knows your address from past experience and probably from a real-world source like a magazine advert.
Referral - follow a link from another website somewhere else. This information is really useful (and cool) as you get to see who is referring people to your content. This allows you to target your efforts in link and traffic building.
Search Engines - type a question into Google, Yahoo etc. and get offered your website as a solution. Search Terms or Keywords will range from your business name to some really odd things. The odd things are the Long-Tail and while many of them are not really relevant, others are people searching for exactly what you offer.

Where Stats Fit in the Process

Statistics are only a tool. It is how you use them that defines the results. Always be sure to take a big or holistic view of your website and statistics so that the information you gather is interpreted in terms of your customers, their desires, your Sales Flow and the business' long-term aims.

It is hard to measure people in the real-world (although many try) but almost everything people do on the web can be tracked (hopefully non-invasively). This data is invaluable in extrapolating to the rest of your process once you have learned to connect the dots. I'll leave you with a diagram that shows how your website probably fits into the big picture.

1^st Source	2^nd Source		1^st Result	Final Result
newspaper advert
bus stop advert			visit showroom
web advert	email mailing list		phone call	sale
store visit	search engine	Web Site Visits	send email enquiry	file for later
phone directory	web advert		join mailing list	nothing
search engine	website referral		re-visit web site
website referral			nothing
friend referral

If you haven't already then set up your web stats package to send you an overview on a weekly basis and stop to take a closer look at least once a month so that you can see the trends and adjust your products and process to suit.