Website Statistics Tutorial - Getting Started Step 5 From Smart Web Center Quick Tutorial Series

5. Getting Started — Website Statistics

Welcome to our Getting Started quick tutorial series. This is a step-by-step overview of the basic information that any website owner needs to know about the web and websites in general.

This information is very basic and is written in non-technical language so that a beginner can get up to speed on website know-how.

Table of Contents
What are website visitor statistics?
C an you get more information from these access logs?
Can everyone with a website get this information?
How important is this information to me?

What are website visitor statistics?

Most web servers can store information about the activity of your website in what is called a Server Access Log. The information they collect is usually about how many people have visited your website, the website they came from to get to yours, what pages they went to on your site, how long are they spending on each page or if they are a first time visitor or a return visitor. There is a lot of information that can be collected and this information is of great value to a you as a website owner. It can help you increase your traffic by understanding where and what visitors are doing at your site.

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Can you get more information from these access logs?

Yes. Sometimes they can tell you from what search engines your visitors are coming from and what keywords they are using that have found your site. Search engines are not the only way people find your site, you may have a link on other people's websites and the access log will let you know which website is giving you the most hits. In addition, you can see if there are broken links on your site or what feature on your site is being asked for the most. All this can aid you a great deal in building your website's traffic.

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Can everyone with a website get this information?

No. The free web hosting companies do not usually offer this as they are limited in their services to keep their costs down and someone with just a personal homepage usually does not need this information anyway. It is usually only the commercial web hosting companies that offer this kind of service. Commercial web hosting companies have this feature available but you sometimes have to ask them to activate it for you.

How important is this information to me?

It can be invaluable. It is almost like having an ongoing marketing survey. You can evaluate all this information to help you in future directions of your website, put links to the most popular features right at the beginning of your site, take the opportunity to gather more information from your visitors by putting a form on the most popular page and so much more.

Smart Web Centers as a business itself understands fully the importance of this kind of information and does offer this feature to their clients.

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