Traffic Report: What's Important

parker3773 · 02-05-2009, 10:06 AM

Hello

As I look at my daily traffic report, I find myself only looking at the number for unique visitors. Would you all say that that is the most important number of are page views equally important? I'm in the thousands for daily page views yet in the hundreds for unique visitors. I guess I'm wondering what parts of my traffic page I should be most interested in to gauge success from an SEO perspective. The bots stop by hundreds of times a day. Do the bots count as page views?

Thanks!

Tim

dburk · 02-06-2009, 11:39 AM

Hi Tim,

The purpose of your website should dictate what numbers are most important. It will be different for a content site that generates revenue through advertising verses an e-commerce site that is trying to make online sales.

As a webmaster you'll be looking at bot traffic for bad bots to ban from your site, overall traffic patterns, pages with unusual traffic patterns, 404 errors and other things like that.

As a marketer you are looking for traffic referral sources, time on site, page abandonment rates, exit pages, sales funnel patterns, conversions, etc.

As a business owner you are looking at conversions and overall trends.

There is easily enough here to write a book, or several books on the subject.

Each website is a business tool that supports a particular business model. you should be acutely aware of what metrics are important to your business and your business model will dictate which website statistics are most important.

If you are willing to share a little about your business model we can offer more specific suggestions.

parker3773 · 02-06-2009, 12:23 PM

Thanks for the response

I'm not selling anything so what I would like to see is adsense and kontera revenues rise. So I think what I'm looking for is an increase in targeted traffic. For that I have been primarily been watching unique visitors but I don't think that is the only metric I should be watching.

Thanks again!

Tim

dburk · 02-06-2009, 04:33 PM

Hi Tim,

You should also want to look at average page views per visit, time on site, traffic sources and keywords used in search queries. Return visitors will be an indicator of how valuable people found your content.

02-05-2009, 10:06 AM	#1
parker3773 Active Warrior Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 47 Thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Traffic Report: What's Important Hello As I look at my daily traffic report, I find myself only looking at the number for unique visitors. Would you all say that that is the most important number of are page views equally important? I'm in the thousands for daily page views yet in the hundreds for unique visitors. I guess I'm wondering what parts of my traffic page I should be most interested in to gauge success from an SEO perspective. The bots stop by hundreds of times a day. Do the bots count as page views? Thanks! Tim
	Just trying to make elementary-finance.com a little better than it was yesterday.

02-06-2009, 11:39 AM	#2
dburk Senior Warrior Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Tampa, Florida Posts: 4,482 Thanks: 137 Thanked 641 Times in 553 Posts Contact Info	Re: Traffic Report: What's Important Hi Tim, The purpose of your website should dictate what numbers are most important. It will be different for a content site that generates revenue through advertising verses an e-commerce site that is trying to make online sales. As a webmaster you'll be looking at bot traffic for bad bots to ban from your site, overall traffic patterns, pages with unusual traffic patterns, 404 errors and other things like that. As a marketer you are looking for traffic referral sources, time on site, page abandonment rates, exit pages, sales funnel patterns, conversions, etc. As a business owner you are looking at conversions and overall trends. There is easily enough here to write a book, or several books on the subject. Each website is a business tool that supports a particular business model. you should be acutely aware of what metrics are important to your business and your business model will dictate which website statistics are most important. If you are willing to share a little about your business model we can offer more specific suggestions.
	Don Burk * Get Results - Outsource Your PPC Management * Get a Keyword Domain Name - www.SeriousNames.com

02-06-2009, 12:23 PM	#3
parker3773 Active Warrior Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 47 Thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Traffic Report: What's Important Thanks for the response I'm not selling anything so what I would like to see is adsense and kontera revenues rise. So I think what I'm looking for is an increase in targeted traffic. For that I have been primarily been watching unique visitors but I don't think that is the only metric I should be watching. Thanks again! Tim
	Just trying to make elementary-finance.com a little better than it was yesterday.

02-06-2009, 04:33 PM	#4
dburk Senior Warrior Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Tampa, Florida Posts: 4,482 Thanks: 137 Thanked 641 Times in 553 Posts Contact Info	Re: Traffic Report: What's Important Hi Tim, You should also want to look at average page views per visit, time on site, traffic sources and keywords used in search queries. Return visitors will be an indicator of how valuable people found your content.
	Don Burk * Get Results - Outsource Your PPC Management * Get a Keyword Domain Name - www.SeriousNames.com