For those new to the world of websites and blogging, and even for many veterans of the industry, understanding the purpose and need for website statistics is not always an obvious one.
In the beginning, most site owners start their quest simply wanting to know if people are visiting their site. Unfortunately for many site owners, counting the number of visits is as far as they go, failing to consider the power that lies within the additional information SiteMeter provides. For simplicity, the SiteMeter’s statistics reports into four primary categories of discussion – Who, What, When, and Where.
“Who” provides you with general geographic location information for each visitor. Knowing the “What” means knowing what on your site is of interest to your visitors. In a few short months SiteMeter will be able to provide you with a list of your sites most visited pages. Knowing the “When” is as important as any other piece of information and for a variety of reason. With SiteMeter’s tracking tool you can clearly see things like – What times of the day are you busiest? What a typical week looks like for your site – is it busiest during the work week or on weekend, etc. Seasonal Trends – is your site more popular during the winter or summer, or maybe during spring break or the holidays. “Where” is knowing where your visitors are coming from, and where they are finding you. With this kind of information you can do things like assess the value of partner links, create and track the success of keyword search campaigns, know which search engines are feeding your site the most traffic, and discover other unknown sources of visitors to your site.
There are many more ways how SiteMeter can potentially be used to improve your site, your reach, and grow your customer base. SiteMeter offers knowledge. And as you know, the more you know the easier it is to make good decisions. Yes you can experiment, throw money at unknowns and try things on your own but why would you when SiteMeter can offer you incredible insights at little or no cost.
