Analyze Your Web Site Statistics

Search Engines, Referrals and other user statistics

Search Engines

Search Engines are normally reported separately from Referrals. A referral is a link from another page, either within your own website or from outside. Search engines include keyword or key phrase information, where a rerferral does not.

Your website traffic analysis software should report the following:

Search Engines by Rank
Number of Searches
Total Searches
New Search Engines
Keywords and phrases, which we will discuss later.

For most websites, this is probably the biggest source of traffic and hence revenue. SE traffic can be fun to watch. The keywords and phrases tell you what your visitors are looking for and how they found you. These searches tell you which of your keywords and phrases is most effective.

Search Engines by Rank and
Number of Searches

Here you will want to see a list of Search Engines that sent you traffic ranked by the number of searches. Hopefully seeing across the board increases in the number of searches. If a particular SE is declining, it is time to look at what is happening with your listing. The problem may be keywords, or competitors may be moving into your market. Or perhaps your content is losing its appeal and needs rework.

Take the keywords and phrases from your analysis data and paste them into your own search. Then look at the results and see where you ranked. You can then look at each of the sites above yours and see how relevant their content is. Visit these sites to determine if they are competitors or not. Examine their keywords for clues to others that might help you differentiate your site and at the same time make it more popular.

And as always, compare these to prior periods. Drop keywords that are no longer effective. Look for shifts in search patterns that will show you where the market is moving.

New Search Engines

Pay close attention to the number of new search engines that sent you traffic. This will tell you how well your keywords are working and how fast your submissions are taking effect. Go to those sites and perform a search using the same keywords that your visitor used. Examine the words and phrases as well as the competition for clues to improving your own site.

Total Searches

Total Searches is another indicator of how well ranked your site is. It also shows how well your marketing efforts are paying off. The higher you climb in the rankings, the higher the number of search hits. If this number shifts downward, look at your keywords.

Referrals

Referrals are not the same as searches. Referrals are usually inward pointing links to your site from other sites, affiliates, your own ads or any number of other sources. You should be able to see pretty much the same information here as for Search Engines:

Referring agents by rank
Number of referrals, both Current and Prior Periods
Total Searches
Number of New Referring sites

I was once surprised to begin receiving a lot of traffic to one of my sites from an unfamiliar source. The referral showed a thread topic number. So I went to this site (It turned out to be a forum) and located the thread. I found that someone who had previously visited my site had placed a link there to one of my tutorials.

It is perfectly OK to join in on the discussion on these forums and elaborate on the subject at hand. After all, since the link is to your site, you are the expert, right? You can even leave another link to your own site, as long it is not a blatant promotion and contributes to the discussion. You just might find yourself the leading authority on the subject. You also might learn something.

You could even go home and design an entirely new page, or even a new product, based on what the people on the forum were discussing. Or you can also redesign your current pages and make corrections and clarifications based on the discussion. Don’t hesitate to use any method that will improve your site.

You can build a surprising amount of traffic through this simple technique.

Make sure your stats service is able to separate referrals from searches. It saves a lot of headaches and allows you to track affiliates and ad campaigns.

Keywords Page

Keywords are the words and phrases that people use to search for information and products. If you can guess what people will say, you should be able to use the same words as they do to increase your rankings.

Taking a clue from the Referrals section above, backtrack your searches and look at the forums and discussion groups. Examine the way people say things and what words they are using. If you see repeated words and phrases, and try incorporating them into your keyword lists. This is an excellent way to develop often used but little known keywords.

Here again, look for the following items from your web site analysis service:

Keywords by rank
Number of times used

Keywords by rank

Be sure to look for changes in popularity of your keywords. Compare the list against your tags and remove ineffective and non-productive words and phrases

As above, take the phrases from your analysis data and paste them into your own search. Then look at the results and see where you ranked. You can then look at each of the sites above yours and see how relevant their content is. Visit these sites to determine if they are competitors or not. Examine keywords for clues to others that might help you differentiate your site and at the same time make it more popular.

Number of times used

Changes in the number of times a keyword or phrase is used are early indicators of changes in thinking or phrasing of subject material. Compare these words over time for an accurate assessment of current conditions.