Web statistics are descriptive metrics about your site, its visitors, content, browsability, and the like. Web statistics can be as simple as tracking how many people visit your page to as detailed as tracking what kind of internet connection those people are using to view your site.
Why Stats Matter
Statistics matter because they tell you a story about your site. You can chart your blog’s growth by having months of statistical data to see how, where, and when your visitors are coming from. If you want to see what kind of search terms people use to find your site, you can get that information. If you’re wondering if a big site has linked you, statistical data will often provide you with those details.
A secondary point is that other companies and networks utilize web statistics in order to create deals, contracts, and opportunities with you. If you want to join an advertising network, you’ll often be asked for your site statistics–especially if you’re looking to cut a better deal.
Find out what are some key statistics and what they mean!
What Stats You Want to Use
First, all stats are good. There’s really no reason not to see as many different statistics as are available to you. I’m going to break down some of the key statistics, ones that you have probably heard before but might not know why they matter. I consider Google Analytics to be my primary statistical tool, so you might have to cross-reference between that and your personal statistical tool preference if the terminology isn’t quite exact.
Visits: every time a person visits your website, whether they view one page or twenty, they have just increased your visits’ count by one. Visits does care about the uniqueness of a person’s visit — every single time they load up your site, it counts as one visit. This is a good metric that provides data on visitor loyalty.
Unique Visitors: each person who visits your site, no matter how many times they do so, is only counted towards this metric once. This is a good metric that provides data on how many individual people you are reaching.
Pageviews: for each page a visitor views on your page, it counts as one pageview. Pageviews indicate how well your content appeals to your audience; are people finding your site and leaving without going to another page? Are your users consistently viewing five pages or more per visit? When it comes to your advertising inventory, pageviews helps you assess how large that inventory is. For instance, a standard is three premium graphic advertising (728×90 leaderboard, 160×600 wide skyscraper, 300×250 medium rectangle) per page. If you get 1,000 pageviews per day, this means you can serve a maximum of 3,000 ads per day.
Average Time on Site: This metric lets you understand user behavior on an average. Of course, loyal readers will likely spend more time on your site than passerbys. However, the average still lets you know how engaging your site is. The longer the better, of course.
Bounce Rate: This is a measurement of how quickly people are leaving your site without being engaged (clicking links/pages to go deeper). While a useful metric on occasion, it doesn’t always tell the full story. If you’re running a blog with ten full entries published on the first page, you may have a high bounce rate (50% or higher), but it doesn’t mean people aren’t reading.
Direct Traffic: This is a measurement of traffic that is coming from people typing your URL into their browser, visiting from a bookmark, and the like.
Referring Sites: This is a measurement of traffic coming from links to your site on someone else’s site.
[Traffic from] Search Engines: This is a measurement of traffic coming in from people searching on various search engines, your site turning up as a result for their search query, and then clicking on your result.
Web Statistics 101: An Introduction
Web Statistics 101: An Introduction
What Are Web Statistics
Web statistics are descriptive metrics about your site, its visitors, content, browsability, and the like. Web statistics can be as simple as tracking how many people visit your page to as detailed as tracking what kind of internet connection those people are using to view your site.
Why Stats Matter
Statistics matter because they tell you a story about your site. You can chart your blog’s growth by having months of statistical data to see how, where, and when your visitors are coming from. If you want to see what kind of search terms people use to find your site, you can get that information. If you’re wondering if a big site has linked you, statistical data will often provide you with those details.
A secondary point is that other companies and networks utilize web statistics in order to create deals, contracts, and opportunities with you. If you want to join an advertising network, you’ll often be asked for your site statistics–especially if you’re looking to cut a better deal.
Find out what are some key statistics and what they mean!
What Stats You Want to Use
First, all stats are good. There’s really no reason not to see as many different statistics as are available to you. I’m going to break down some of the key statistics, ones that you have probably heard before but might not know why they matter. I consider Google Analytics to be my primary statistical tool, so you might have to cross-reference between that and your personal statistical tool preference if the terminology isn’t quite exact.
Visits: every time a person visits your website, whether they view one page or twenty, they have just increased your visits’ count by one. Visits does care about the uniqueness of a person’s visit — every single time they load up your site, it counts as one visit. This is a good metric that provides data on visitor loyalty.
Unique Visitors: each person who visits your site, no matter how many times they do so, is only counted towards this metric once. This is a good metric that provides data on how many individual people you are reaching.
Pageviews: for each page a visitor views on your page, it counts as one pageview. Pageviews indicate how well your content appeals to your audience; are people finding your site and leaving without going to another page? Are your users consistently viewing five pages or more per visit? When it comes to your advertising inventory, pageviews helps you assess how large that inventory is. For instance, a standard is three premium graphic advertising (728×90 leaderboard, 160×600 wide skyscraper, 300×250 medium rectangle) per page. If you get 1,000 pageviews per day, this means you can serve a maximum of 3,000 ads per day.
Average Time on Site: This metric lets you understand user behavior on an average. Of course, loyal readers will likely spend more time on your site than passerbys. However, the average still lets you know how engaging your site is. The longer the better, of course.
Bounce Rate: This is a measurement of how quickly people are leaving your site without being engaged (clicking links/pages to go deeper). While a useful metric on occasion, it doesn’t always tell the full story. If you’re running a blog with ten full entries published on the first page, you may have a high bounce rate (50% or higher), but it doesn’t mean people aren’t reading.
Direct Traffic: This is a measurement of traffic that is coming from people typing your URL into their browser, visiting from a bookmark, and the like.
Referring Sites: This is a measurement of traffic coming from links to your site on someone else’s site.
[Traffic from] Search Engines: This is a measurement of traffic coming in from people searching on various search engines, your site turning up as a result for their search query, and then clicking on your result.