Yet why is this level of detail valuable? It’s like this: by keeping this type of log of web site traffic, you can use it to find out if there’s a definite area of the web-site that may be attracting visitors, or if there are many of return viewers. This details are next applied to improve the internet site, if there is one particular page on the site which is mainly being unnoticed, it may show that the webpage is either not really useful, or perhaps hard to access. This would make it possible for the site manager recognize that either the page subject material should be analyzed, or even the site layout to permit better accessibility to that particular web page.

Understand that targeted traffic has long been the most significant challenge for most website owners . . . where to get it, whether to buy it, ways to increase it. Right here is some assistance: Free Traffic System

The web server record pretty much means that you can recreate each website visitors experience on the site, from how they found the website, just which internet pages these people visited, whatever they looked over on every page, and just what it was that encouraged these people to abandon the page. This is able to permit the people managing the web-site if there’s some distinct feature sending away users, or if a specific advert on a different page is sucking in a higher than ordinary quantity of viewers. Normally the greatest manner to raise the circulation of visitors on the web site is simply by spending to advertise on another website, since this provides a straight weblink from their web site to your own. Consequently, in the event that you manage to put together your advertising on a specially prosperous website, such as a social networking website having a large number of regular readers, your odds of somebody hitting that hyperlink and taking a look at your website tremendously improve. Nevertheless, this works in reverse as well; if an individual pays to advertize on your own web site, in that case even though you receive the profits from the advertisement, it will increase the odds of your website visitors clicking on that advertisement and exiting your own page. However in case people started to do this, a track record of it would naturally be retained in the hosting server log. Therefore if one particular ad was taking too many of your online visitors, it wouldn’t be outside your power to eliminate that ad to prevent people following that link.

In summary, web traffic logs provide a means of checking how successful your website, though normally the most recognition is paid to the amount of visits the website achieved, no matter if they are views of thirty seconds or half an hour. With watchful analysis, web traffic data is an invaluable resource to a web-site manager.

A lot of years ago I was excited to get my initial web page. The joy was short-lived as the realization rapidly dawned: Nobody was likely to see the site let alone buy from it – regardless of how appealing the style, or how wonderful the products or how competitive the prices. They were depressing times.

I lost a lot of cash on false promises as I enthusiastically explored each option. It comes down to the webmasters fundamental issue and there’s no shortage of products all promising you the answer… the way to get traffic.

The answer is promised by traffic exchanges. Free of charge to join, a traffic exchange will guarantee traffic to your website. They were successful simply because the traffic came but the visitors to my web site had been unwilling and unmotivated. The visitors had not come out of interest for what I provided and absolutely not to buy. The traffic I received was there because they were necessary to check out my web page to earn a reciprocal pay a visit to on theirs. Everybody coming to my web page was just counting down the seconds until they could leave.

Unfortunately I located that I was sometimes tempted by presents elsewhere, although no-one would buy from me – possibly partly because I was based inside the UK. When you use a traffic exchange, then this sends two clear messages: Firstly which you need traffic and secondly that you may nicely need other web services (for instance hosting, search engine optimization, link developing and so on). I was a gullible target as many web-sites are geared at selling into that niche.

To stay away from the difficult sell, rather than surfing for credits, I could usually pay for them or I even regarded as providing my son pocket dollars to sit and click.

How utterly and fully pointless!

I may not waste my time, but was now thinking about wasting a person else’s time rather. Not merely was it a waste of human effort, but the traffic I received would still be practically useless.

It can be difficult to comprehend how traffic exchanges continue: If an individual does not actively choose to view a web page out of genuine interest or want, then they are never going to be a willing buyer. Inevitably struggling webmasters, specifically new ones, will clutch at the traffic exchange straw – but the answer to finding good quality internet traffic has to lie elsewhere.

Anyway, the reason I’m even mentioning Google Alerts is because I have been receiving TONS of new information lately, it seems every hour I get more Alerts and this tells me two things.

1) There are many new websites coming onto the Internet (that’s nothing new)

2) Many more websites are continuously adding information!

AND that tells me that everything that I’m reading about Search Engine Optimization is true!

What I’m reading is that CONTENT truly is KING. All content, new content, continuously fresh content, data, data, data!!!!

Basically, the more information (relevant information of course) you have on your website, the higher your rankings will be, the more audience you’ll be attracting, the more sales you’ll receive, the more exposure you’ll get and the more links you’ll have.

Think about it, part of getting UP on the search engines is getting other websites to link TO you. That’s easy enough to do with search engines and directories. But it’s a bit harder to get other regular websites to link to you. So, many people participate in a link exchange type of program. That’s good, but what’s even better is having other websites link to you because you have something GOOD to say! These are ONE WAY links, in other words you don’t have to reciprocate the link! These ONE WAY links score more points (to search engines).

I know I’ve been harping on this for a long time and I’ve opened many blogs for my clients and I give all my monthly marketing clients a new keyword phrase every month to help inspire them to write an article (about that keyword phrase) in their blogs and maybe even their websites.

But, I have to admit, it’s a losing battle. I wish I could sit and write articles for every one of my clients every week! I KNOW that would bring in more customers, more revenue, more, more, more!! I KNOW because I’ve done it on my own website and it absolutely, 100% works, without a doubt.

I recently have had a few customers call and ask me “What else can I do?” — “I’ll spend more money but what can I do?” — my reply to them is WRITE!!!! If you can’t write an article, hire someone to write an article (my friend and article contributor Joel Kweskin can help you). But however you do it, just do it!!

Esther C. Kane is an SEO webmaster and owner of Eckweb Designs, Inc. Specializing in affordable search engine optimization for improved search engine rankings for small and home based business websites.

First of all, forget about “hits”. Whenever someone requests a file it is a hit. If you visit a web page, then you are requesting several files all at once: the file for the page and the files for all the graphics on the page. By visiting one page on a site you are registering several hits. “Hits” is a very vague term and doesn’t give you a good picture of what is happening on your site.

A more precise indicator of your traffic, and thus a more useful statistic, is the amount of unique visitors you receive each day. Internet statistics are never precise, but your number of unique visitors will give you a rough idea of how many people visited your website on any given day. Compare this number to the amount of orders or inquiries you get and you can figure out your conversion rate.

Another important Internet statistic to keep you eye on are the referrers. A referrer is the website where a person was visiting prior to landing on your site. Search engines are important referrers, and sites that link to you are other referrers. Compare your referred traffic to total traffic and you will see how many people just typed in your url and how many came after seeing your link in another location.

Knowing where your visitors came from is very important, but it is even better if you can get more details about this kind of traffic. That is why you should also look for the search terms that people used when coming from a search engine. Most trackers or log analysis program will give you the search terms that were used on the referring search engines.

Take a look at these terms and see if you are really getting targeted traffic. If what you consider to be your most important keywords are not high up in the list of search terms that people are actually using to find you, then you have to adjust the content of your website accordingly.

The activity of people on your site is also important. Which pages do they use to enter your site, and from which pages do they leave the site? Which are the pages that are most frequently visited and which pages are least frequently visited? Finally, what is the pattern of the traffic on your site?

Good tracking or analysis programs will tell you the click-path that people take through your site. The click-path is the sequence of consecutive pages that people follow as they go through your site. For example, if your visitors are not ending up on your order page, but following a sequence that leads them out of the site without ordering, you can look at your site again and correct the weak spots.

You can get access to these statistics in a few ways

1. Your hosting provider may have a built in traffic analysis program, such as Awstats and Webalizer. Both programs are excellent and if they are installed on your server you should take advantage of them. Just log into your account and view your statistics online.

2. You can analyze your site’s access logs using programs installed on your computer. I like the OpenWebScope program, available at www.openwebscope.com Get a trial version, analyze your site’s access log and you will end up with a report of visitor activity on your website. A similar program is offered by http://www.sawmill.co.uk/

3. Paste java script tracking code to your pages. Several companies provide java script trackers. Once your tracker is installed, all you have to do is to log onto a site to see your stats. Some of the trackers are free, such as the one at http://extreme-dm.com/tracking. There are also various paid services that offer a similar method of gathering statistics.

4. Google recently bought the Urchin tracking system and now offers a statistics reporting service, free of charge, in their Google Analytics program. Unfortunately, you can only get on the waiting list as the system was heavily oversubscribed in its opening days.

Gather your website statistics using a method that is easy for you and use this data to improve the performance of your website. When you get an idea of who your visitors are, how they are finding your website and which pages they are visiting on your website, you can then make changes and upgrades that will boost your online success.

Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor and search engine optimization specialist. He is the proprietor of A1-Optimization, http://www.a1-optimization.com, a firm offering low-cost search engine optimization and website promotion services. He is also the principal editor of the A1-Article Directory, http://www.a1-articledirectory.com