web statistics
Myths About Web Statistics Learn What Ad Trackers, Hit Counters, and Web Stats Programs Do NOT Want You to Find Out! Any internet marketing guru will tell you that web statistics and visitor tracking are crucial to success in the online world. They say that no matter how large or small a business is, website statistics are the key to success. After all, why does your website have a website counter at the bottom of the page? So you can know how many people have come to your site! As you well know, however, not all visitors translate into sales. Your profit comes not from the number of visitors you have, but from the number of visitors you have that make a purchase. Of course, without the visitors, there would be no purchase and therefore no income. So likely your online marketing is focused on increasing your web stats by bringing more visitors to your site. This strategy is fine, but does it really work? Does simply improving your counter statistics by getting more visitors logged on your page counter bring more sales? Not necessarily. After all, some of those visitors are simply coming to your site out of curiosity. These visitors never intended to make a purchase. They simply wanted to know what your site was all about. You even have visitors that came to your site accidentally by clicking on your ad unintentionally. This type of visitor affects your live web statistics, but not your profit margin. So, does this mean that knowing website stats is not helpful as you market your site? No, it doesn’t. This is where the world of web statistics gets complicated. Those who design website trackers, web statistics software, and web stats analysis programs want you to think that simply knowing the numbers about your site is all you need. However, unless you can know what those numbers mean, they are useless to you. Thus, you need to enter the world of advanced web statistics. Unless you know more about what your visitors do once they come to your site, your website stats are useless. For instance, once your visitor hits the home page, where do they go next? Knowing this will help you know which pages of your site are the most appealing. If web analytics show that the visitor is hitting the \“FAQ\” page before browsing the catalogue, you might want to make a change to your site’s layout. On the other hand, if the visitor is going to the catalogue and then instantly leaving the site, you may find that the layout of your catalogue needs tweaking. So why don’t most current web stats software programs work? Well, most of the hit counters and page counter programs that you can use on your website were created at the beginning of the internet’s history, which was before people began to make money on the World Wide Web. They simply tell you how many people come to your site. A few more sophisticated visitor counter programs may account for returning visitors and may provide a small amount of visitor tracking, but they do not really analyze your website statistics. In other words, they do not help you determine which visitors become customers. The funny truth about website visitor tracking is that the technology behind the idea has not changed much as the internet has grown. Most of the web analytics programs you can purchase are very similar to the free web counter and live web stats programs that were available in the 1990s when the internet was a brand new entity, yet each of these products claims to be the newest and most innovative. So you end up purchasing the next great visitor counter or live web statistics program, only to find that the information you know about your website has not changed. Is there a better solution? Absolutely! See for yourself by trying a free sample of Clickalyzer. Soon you will see exactly what your web statistics mean, and how you can use them to improve your site and your income.