Did you know that the server logs supplied by your web host contain tons of critical information about the success of your web site?

IMPORTANT NOTE: Just in case you don’t know, a server log is simply a file that records each time someone requests one of your web pages and the associated files (i.e. graphics, audio, banner ads, buttons, etc…)

Once you have this critical information, you can use it to sharpen and focus your marketing strategy to explode your online sales!

You’ll be able to…                                                                                                   

• Adjust your web site layout to eliminate any problems or snags that might be frustrating your visitors… causing them to leave and never come back!
• Tweak your sales copy and content to reflect your visitor’s interests… so you’ll keep visitors at your site longer and start closing more sales!
• Know exactly which advertising is paying off… and which is a waste of your hard-earned advertising dollars!

… and this is just for starters!

Do Not Take This Information Lightly!

Your server logs can give you a clear picture of…

1) Which Search Engines Bring Your Site The Most Visitors: 

You’ll know exactly which search engines to focus on when optimizing your web site for a “Top Ten” ranking.

2) What Keywords Visitors Are Searching For In The Search Engines:

Optimizing your web site for a “Top Ten” ranking is way easier when you know which keywords people are searching for.  You’ll know exactly what keywords to focus on when designing your Meta tags, title, content, etc…

3) Which Linking Partners Are Bringing You The Most Sales:

You’ll know who is sending you lots of traffic… and who is sending you none at all!  You may be surprised at what you learn – you could be paying a lot for a link that’s bringing you zero traffic!

4) Which Of Your Advertising And Promotion Tactics Are Paying Off:

With this info, you can stop paying for advertising that doesn’t bring paying customers… and focus on the ads that earn you the biggest profits.

5) How Long Your Visitors Are Staying: 

Are they spending 20 minutes surfing through your site… or are they leaving in less than 30 seconds?  With this information, you’ll know…

a) If your page is taking too long to load, frustrating visitors and causing them to leave.

b) Whether or not your headlines and opening paragraph are capturing your visitors’ interest and attention… or sending them away!

c) If your traffic is targeted…or just a bunch of tire kickers. You may need to re-examine how and where you are advertising to start drawing more high quality traffic.

Your server logs will let you know where the problems are… so you can fix them right away and STOP LOSING SALES!     

6) Which Pages Your Visitors Are Most Interested In:

If your visitors are spending the majority of their time on a particular page, you may need to re-adjust your sales copy and site path.  For example, if you thought the marketing section was going to be a big hit, but it turns out that the contest page draws the most traffic, you might want to revise your contest page to encourage more sales.

7) What Path Visitors Are Travelling Through Your Web Site:

You may discover that the majority of your visitors are entering your site somewhere other than your homepage!  Again, you may need to re-adjust your sales copy and site path.

8) What Error Messages Your Visitors Are Getting:

Are they looking for a page that you took off your web site a week ago? Is there a problem with one of your forms?  These are critical problems that need your immediate attention!

9) Which Browsers Your Visitors Are Using:

For example, if 80% of your visitors are using Netscape 4.x, and you haven't taken a look at your site on Netscape 4.x, you won't know what they are seeing!

 10) What Operating Systems People Are Using: (i.e. Windows95, Windows98, Mac, etc.)

With this information, you can be sure that the technology you use in your site design is compatible with your visitors’ computers.    

11) Which Days And Hours Are Most Popular At Your Site:

Do you receive a huge surge of traffic starting minutes after your e-zine is delivered?  Are you getting the most sales on Thursday evenings? With the information in your server logs, you’ll know exactly when your site must be in TOP-NOTCH condition to avoid losing sales!

12) What Page(s) Your Visitors Are Exiting Your Site From:

With this information, you can make changes to grab your visitors’ attention before they leave your site… and move on to your competition!

If you want your web site to be successful, then you need to correctly analyze your server logs.  Without them, you have no way of accurately tracking your visitors.

WARNING:  In order to analyze and understand your logs, you need a basic understanding of the *lingo* used… so next I’m going to explain the difference between:

• Hits
• Pageviews
• Clickthroughs
• Unique Visitors
• Interactive Visitors

This is extremely important!  I often hear people bragging that their web site gets millions of hits every week… thinking this means that their site receives millions of visitors every week.  This is totally wrong and I’ll explain why…

HITS:

During your web travels, you’ve probably noticed that some web sites post “Hit counters” at the bottom of their homepage.  They’ll say something like, “7,654,7982 visitors since January 3, 2000.” 

It sounds impressive, right? Well, don’t be fooled! 

A “Hit counter” does not actually count visitors!  Instead, it records the number of times *each file* that makes up a particular web page has been requested from your web host’s server.

For example…

Let’s say your homepage is made up of 29 files – the HTML document and 28 graphic, logo, button, and banner files.

When a visitor clicks to your site, their browser will request each of the 29 files that make up your homepage separately!   Each individual request that a web browser makes for a file is counted as a “Hit”… so one visit would be recorded as 29 hits. 

Hits are the requests made by web browsers for each individual file that makes up a web page (the HTML file, graphic files, plug-ins, scripts, text files, style sheets, etc…), which means that one visit can be recorded as multiple hits!

So “Hits” are not an accurate reflection of the traffic a web site gets. 

PAGEVIEWS: 

Pageviews basically count the number of times the HTML file for your web page is requested from your web server.

The key difference between Hits and Pageviews is that Pageviews only count the number of times the HTML file is requested… while Hits count ALL files requested!  

However, while Pageviews are way more useful for counting visitors than Hits, you should know that this isn’t 100% accurate either! 

CLICKTHROUGHS: 

Clickthroughs are the number of times an online advertisement is clicked on by visitors, who are then taken to the advertiser’s web page. 

For example, let’s say that you have paid to post a banner on another web site.  A visitor sees your banner and clicks through it to your site -- this is counted as a “clickthrough.”

By measuring clickthroughs, you can figure out how much traffic a particular advertisement is generating.

Keep in mind, however, that “clickthroughs” are limiting because they don’t tell you about the quality of these visitors or their activities.

If you were only measuring “clickthroughs,” you might be excited to see that your banner ad on a particular site was bringing you 45 visitors everyday. 

You’d have no way of knowing that the visitors who clickthrough from that site never buy anything.  You’d be wasting your hard-earned advertising dollars… and wouldn’t even know it! 

UNIQUE VISITORS:

This is the most important measure of web site traffic HANDS DOWN!

Unique visitors are tracked by their IP address (or Internet Protocol address), rather than by files requested from the web server.  IP addresses are much like online fingerprints… making them one of the most accurate ways to track visitors.

Be warned, however, that a single IP address may not always reflect a single and truly "unique" visitor!

QUICK TIP: You may notice that web statistics software call them "user sessions" instead of "unique visitors."  They do this because 1 visitor can come back to your site multiple times in the same month and look like a *different visitor* each time.  This is why they are recorded as "user sessions.”

INTERACTIVE VISITORS:

This is a relatively new way of analyzing who your visitors are, where they’re coming from, and how they’re interacting with your web site.  You are not just looking at the quantity of traffic your site receives… you’re looking at the quality of visitors as well.

Interactive Visitors measures such things as…

• How long visitors are staying at your site
• How many visitors are making a purchase
• How many are repeat visitors
• Which web sites visitors are being referred from

… giving you critical information about visitors’ likes, dislikes, and behavior at your web site.  This is the exact information you need to improve your web site and start capturing more sales!

WHERE DO I GET THIS KIND OF INFORMATION?

Your web host should be able to provide you with your server logs.  Many hosts will give them to you as part of your hosting fee, while others will charge you for them. (This is one of the questions I suggest you ask when choosing your web host.)

So first of all, you need to ask your web host for your server logs. They will stick these in a file at your site and you can download the information via FTP. 

In many cases, what you are going to get is raw log data -- piles of numbers and symbols that are almost impossible to interpret!

Some web hosts already have log analysis software, which makes things really easy.  They will import your server logs into their database… and magically turn all the numbers into easy-to-read reports, graphs, and charts.

You can then simply download these reports and work with the info offline… or sometimes you can even view it online. Again, be sure to ask your web host if they offer these services.

If your web host doesn’t offer log analysis, you may need to purchase the software yourself.  There are dozens and dozens of log analyzing programs out there, ranging in price from free to thousands of dollars.

(IMPORTANT NOTE: The price does not always reflect the power of the program, the usefulness of the features, or the kinds of reports that it makes available to you!)

The following are a few of the programs that I’m familiar with, however, this isn’t an exhaustive list, so you may also want to do some research of your own.

• My personal favorite is WebTrends Log Analyzer.  In my opinion, it’s by far the best… and we have tried them all.  This program is capable of analyzing huge amounts of data very quickly. It can also produce reports, charts, and graphs that can be customized in every way imaginable -- including the level of information, color, and report formats (i.e. Word document, spreadsheet, HTML document, or text file). 
• We have had the most luck with WebTrends -- we use it constantly to calculate our stats. It gives us invaluable marketing data, letting us know what our users like and dislike about our site based on where they are going, how long they are staying, etc.
• To learn more about WebTrends, visit http://www.webtrends.com
• Fluid Dynamics created a free CGI script called AXS. If you know how to work with CGI scripts, you might consider downloading it and giving it a try.  With this well-known program, you can create some really useful reports with great looking charts and graphs that will help you to know and understand your visitors. Check it out at http://www.xav.com/
• Another very nice little program (also free!) is WebLog.  It’s fast, efficient, and will print out secondary reports to track: user sessions, paths taken by visitors, time spent on each page, where visitors are coming from, which keywords they’re searching in the search engines, browsers used, plus more.  Check it out at http://awsd.com/scripts/weblog/index.shtml

The bottom line here is that you must be tracking visitors at your web site.  By analyzing the statistics you gather from your server logs, you can make strategic improvements to your web site… and dramatically increase the number of sales you close!

FINAL NOTE: Without getting into the technical details, you should know that if you have a large web site or lots of traffic, your server logs are going to be very large and take a long time to download… never mind analyze. 

If this is the case, then you may wish to consider hiring the services of a third party web analyzer.  It will save you time and money!  Plus they can often give you more immediate feedback on the success of an ad campaign or promotion you’re running. 

WebTrends Live is a good solution in such cases, but there are others out there.  To check out WebTrends Live, visit http://www.webtrendslive.com