Most companies we know are blissfully ignorant of their website traffic and have no idea if it's increasing or decreasing, if their paid banner ads are generating traffic that generate sales, and who the key influencers are that send compelling traffic to their site. Over the last decade, our experience is that this information can lead to increased sales if you know what to do with it:
How many unique visitors do you get per month?
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What are your top five web pages?
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Who are your top five referrers?
Unique Visitors
This measure is the closest approximation to how many people are actually visiting your website. We say "approximation" because it includes search engine traffic (robots), but the same holds true for all websites. People often look at "hits" but a hit is recorded every time a single file or graphic is loaded from a page, so one person downloading a graphic-intensive page can be measured as 100 hits. Also, non-unique reporting of visitors can easily mislead because every time someone hits the back or refresh button, it will be recorded as if they were a different visitor. Thus, your total unique visitors is the most meaningful indication of traffic and whether it is increasing or decreasing, particularly as a report card for your web development efforts and online advertising. One Innovaxis client poured thousands into web design, only to find that it averaged one unique visitor per day... If you don't know how to measure unique visitors, contact us and we will show you how at no charge.
Top Five Pages
Knowing the most popular pages on your site will directly indicates what your market is most interested in hearing about from you. One Innovaxis client found that their owner bios were the most commonly accessed pages instead of their top project profiles because projects are assigned based on trust in addition to price, leading us to conclude that we needed to have more face time with our clients and prospects. On our nightlife website, Chicago Bar Project, we were surprised to discover that the most popular pages were our bachelor and bachelorette party planner pages, which led to us to an advertising partnership with Chicago Trolley.
Top Five Referring Websites
If you are advertising on third-party websites, they likely report eye-popping numbers for how many "impressions" were made of your ad (read here why they are often misleading), and how many people clicked on your banner ad or exhibit. Only your site can verify these "click-throughs" by displaying to you how many unique visitors came from referring sites. One Innovaxis client was told by an advertising site that their ad had over 30,000 impressions and several hundred click-throughs. However, our client's website statistics indicated there were less than 20 click-throughs as well as no measurable impact on sales. Innovaxis then recommended spending money on sites that had much higher website traffic and impact on sales. Lastly, by reviewing who really are your top referring websites, you can understand is really sending traffic your way, which could lead you to an even more productive relationship with them and/or you can target other similar sites not yet referring anyone your way.
Conclusion
If you need help with any of these site diagnostics or are unhappy with what you find, contact us and we'll get your website and overall marketing strategy on track. |
