Website Stats Reveal Hidden Gems - A Follow-Up
September 19, 2008
Every few days or so, I get around to checking where our website traffic is coming from and what pages are generating the most traffic. Shortly after we created our “Do Follow List” it became the most frequented page visited. It has stayed that way for three months and doesn’t look like it will be fading anytime soon.
The second most visited page is our blog. This makes a lot of sense, we post often and each new post is submitted to Technorati, Digg, Stumble, Reddit. We also ping a large number of sites and we also submit each post to Google’s Blog Search.
The third most visited web page is the home page. This traffic is generated by the search engines mostly. This is the group most likely in need of our services.
The #4 and #5 positions are taken up by more recent blog posts. One of those is for our “Do Follow Forum List.” It originally was part of a much larger list but was recently separated to create a series of smaller lists. These two pages have just moved up into the top 5 since I last reviewed my website stats.
I tell you this to point out that there is a lot of very useful information hidden within your statistics. I have determined that posts that create value for the visitors become the most visited pages. This seems like common sense I know, but these insights can be useful.
You can begin to see patterns both positive and negative. If you are one of those inclined to take a closer look at things you might find some real gems here. Let’s say a post generated 500 visits but only 5 comments. This might reveal that you are a great marketer but that your content is weak.
Follow-up - After this post I took another look at what searches people were using to find us and I was surprised by something that I had noticed. We had a new Keyword phrase as the most searched query. We have been targeting Phoenix SEO for sometime. There are many websites working to gain or maintain the first page for this search. So it has been difficult to gain a presence on Google’s first page.
We managed to crack the the #10 position for three days running. Even at the 10th spot we were able to generate a bunch of traffic. This blew me away and encouraged me that my efforts were worth it. I was very surprised by this gem. We will now work to polish it to perfection.
When you take the time to analyze your statistics you can find some very amazing pieces of information. For many of you, this is something that you already know, but for many website owners this is all new to them. So if this is new to you, then definitely it is time to add Google Analytics. Its a free Google tool.
We recommend that your stats be reviewed weekly!
So I ask when is the last time you looked at your website stats?
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
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Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, and through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
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9 Responses to “Website Stats Reveal Hidden Gems - A Follow-Up”
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It’s good to keep track of website traffic and what pages your visitors are landing on .You can then add or take away information that my be on a not frequently visited page and placed on a page that has more traffic.Where it would be utilized better.
I review my stats on a regular basis. So I do agree that you can discover lots of gems in the process. We have changed many of are targeted keyword because no one was finding us using them. Good suggestion here.
A went to a seminar a few months ago and heard this talked about but I didn’t understand it. Later I asked a friend to help me set up Google analytics and it has been a game changer. I freaked when I realized that I had such a high bounce rate.
ADMIN: That’s usually the first thing that people notice.
Can you explain where I find those stats.I want to be able to know what the visitor to my website is looking for and how to capture their attention.
ADMIN: Eddie thats a really great comment and question. That answer is a really difficult for this reason every website and web host is set up a little different. We use Google Analytics which is a free service from Google. It will require the ability to add some HTML code to your website.
Another option is to log into your web hosts control panel and look for stats. Most good providers supply some stats recording options such as AWstats. We use a combination of both.
I bookmarked this post so I could come back and follow-up. I have Google analytics but I have never paid much attention to it before. It was placed on the site by a former employee.
I found lots of very useful information after playing around with it. Do you know anything about Google Trends?
Admin: We do not use Google Trends so I can not give you any help on this one.
I finally got around to adding Google Analytics a few months back and I was amazed by all the information that is available. I made bunches of changes based on this new information.
Since my last comment I really have found so much more useful information that the Google Analytics tool. Thanks for recommending using on all the websites your involved with SEO.
I’m a huge advocate for Google Analytics I recommend it to everyone who has a website.To be successful you have to be on top of your game and the information this tool gives you is priceless.
Congratulations on your discovery what a treasure hunter. Gems are precious things to find. Using them to achieve increased wealth is their purpose. Enjoyed this post.