Web Site Statistics Explained

Some site statistics providers offer more or less statistics than others but the majority have a few certain statistics that are an integral part of analyzing trends. Here we will explain what these statistics are and how they can help you.

Unique Visitors: Perhaps the most used statistics for measuring how many physical people visit a web site is a trend called Unique Visitors. A Unique Visitor is usually recorded as 1 person at 1 computer visiting your web site per 24 hour period. Often times with commerce a visitor may visit your web site and leave just to come back an hour or two later. A Unique Visitor statistic does not take into consideration a return visitor. A Unique Visitor is only recorded once per web site or domain name thus if a visitor views 100 web pages within a web site throughout a 24 hour period it is recorded as 1 Unique Visitor.

Page Views: A Page View is a web statistic that counts Unique Visitors as well as return visitors. Essentially, Page Views are a metric of every single physical set of eyeballs that view a web page. Unlike Unique Visitor statistics a Page View statistic counts every single web page viewed. If a visitor views 136 web pages within a web site the Page Views will record 136 Page Views. This statistic is important for analyzing the effectiveness of your web site. If your Page Views are similar to your Unique Visitors such as 150 Unique Visitors and 170 Page views then you should realize that the majority of your visitors are only viewing the first page within your web site. This could be a major issue if your product or service offerings are on internal pages.

Referrers: The Referrers statistic shows what web site or URL a visitor is referred from. A URL typed into a web browser will show as a book mark where if your site was domain123.com and ran advertising campaigns on abcd.com the Referrers statistic will show how many visitors your site (domain123.com) received from abcd.com. This statistic is usually shown as a Unique Visitor from a particular URL.

Search Terms: The Search Term metric is useful for organic optimization purposes as well as running PPC campaigns. This statistic shows how many visitors were referred to your web site from a particular search term. If a particular search term is queried on a major search engine and your indexed listing is clicked on the web site statistics will show what search term was used to visit your site.

Other less standard statistics include ROI trends. An ROI (Return on Investment) trend is a feature where you input your price per product and the cost of your advertising efforts in order to complete a particular sale. ROI measures what advertising efforts provide what Return on Investment