Playing the Numbers Game - Do Your Stats Measure Up?
- by Kath Blackwell
Statistics - they are all over the Internet in just about every shape and form. There are statistics for how many 'Netizens flood the Web each month... there are statistics for language, for browser preference - even for the types of content that surfers enjoy viewing the most.
Today's successful webmaster needs to know his stats and make choices accordingly to the data found in his stats - as he will surely live or die by those results.
In order to make sure you are taking advantage of all the opportunities and potential success that might be coming your way - you will need to make sure you measure the numbers that matter most to your business. Weeding out the important information from the not-so-important information is vital to taking a proper "temperature" of how your site is doing. The three most basic - yet most important - numbers to know when gathering your information for evaluation are your customer statistics, your overall sales figures and the usage details from your Web site. If you have all of that information at your fingertips, you've got the world in your hands.
Web Logs - A Webmaster's Best Friend
Customer statistics and sales figures are easy - we check those stats daily. But what about Web log stats? What numbers are most important? What figures are vital to predicting trends and avoiding pitfalls? For those who aren't familiar with Web log stats - these are the statistics that show every Web page or graphic, audio, banner or button file that is viewed on your site. Most hosting companies offer these statistics for free with your host account and they are typically located in a file called a server log.
Web logs tell you - in addition to how many visitors you are getting to your site each day - which engines bring you the most traffic, which keywords are bringing you the most search engine traffic and where visitors are entering your site. They can also help you distinguish which link trades and partnerships bring you the most traffic and how long your visitors are staying on your site, and on which individual pages. Web logs can even tell you where visitors are entering your site - and at what page/location they are exiting.
But there are so many numbers, so many ways of analyzing your traffic - which ones are important and which ones are virtually meaningless? Having lots of traffic is one thing, but having productive traffic that converts - that's something else entirely. When you combine your site stats - your Web logs from your host or other software - with your sales and customer statistics, that's when it all comes together and you can begin to see how each part fits into the big picture. That's where the true power lies!
You've Got the Information - Now What?
Now that you know what stats to look at - and how you need to make them all blend together to get a better view of how well your site is really doing, you need to know how to analyze them in order to yield the best results. In order to achieve your goals successfully, you will want to ask yourself some important questions...
- What is your average conversion ratio? - Knowing your sales-to-visitors ratio is vital to understanding the true value of your overall traffic. Making one sale to every 50 visitors for instance, makes your traffic much more valuable than if you are converting one sale to every thousand. This is an important primary building block in analyzing your stats in order to optimize your site's performance to its full potential.
- How much lifetime revenue are you making from each member? - Getting an accurate picture of how many months your members renew their memberships... finding out how well you are also doing with up-sells, up-grades and product sales should also be entered into this figure. Knowing the quality of your customer base can help you to decide if you need to enhance your members' area or if you should offer additional product sales based upon customer response.
- What is your average click-through ratio? - Measuring the navigational habits of both your members and your non-members will help you evaluate your on-site advertising. Determining your click-through ratio can help you find out more about the performance of on-site banners, full-page ads, pop-up windows and member area product stores.
- How difficult - or easy - is the navigation of your site? - The goal of some sites is to get the surfers lost so that they are forced to click on some sort of sponsor ad or click-thru banner in order to get out. For anyone who has a customer base - or is trying to attract members, hopefully people who will become recurring members - making sure your traffic doesn't become lost or confused is a must! Through your statistics you should be able to determine how many surfers leave after the home page - or other pages inside your site - without clicking on other links. This will also help you discover the effectiveness of your home page - and how effective other pages within your site are at encouraging conversions.
- How much are you spending per customer? - In the world of traditional e-commerce there are two separate ways to consider this statistic. CPV, which is Cost Per Visitor, and CPC, Cost Per Customer. With CPV you would consider how much you spend on a marketing campaign and compare that to how many visitors you gained from that campaign. With CPC, you would count the customers gained during that same campaign period and compare this figure to the overall visitor ratio statistics. It is important to make sure that you consult these statistics to make sure you aren't overpaying for visitors or for customers.
PART TWO: Analyzing the Data
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