Are you aware that with your web hosting package, it'll normally have a free website statistics available?
However, the information is not always easy to understand or doesn't give you the information in a way that is easy to understand.
Google Analytics is a great application Google provides for free. With just a small code inserting into your webpage, it can tracks not just Google's visitors, but all activities happening on your website. Setting up is simple, all you need is a Google Account and FTP Access for code editing. I encourage you to sign up one as soon as possible, you can do it here: http://www.google.com/analytics/
Here are some guidelines to follow when tracking your web-traffic:
Visitors can be broken down into two groups, fresh and returning visitors. While you may think it's important to get as much fresh visitors to your website as possible, returning visitors are the ones that actually determines if your website is interesting enough for them to come back.
Keywords that drove people to your website. When you know which keywords people look for direct them to your website, its easier for you to optimize your website for a high search engine ranking. It also reflect on the compatibility of your keywords to what you offers. if not it's time to make a change.
Length of Visits shows the time your visitors spent on your website. The longer they stay, the more it proves your content within is rich and captivating.
Depth of Visits shows the number of pages viewed for every single visit stayed.
Referrals are the one that drives the highest quality traffic? But they are also the one which their traffic were not under your controls. Tracking a referral allows you to at least be aware of what's happening in case of spams or complaints.
Navigation paths resulted in conversions during the visit? For each navigation path, this report shows conversion rates and the value per visit.
Exit Pages indicates from which pages do visitors commonly exit your site? This report shows the number of exits from pages on your site. If you notice a high number of exits for specific pages, it is time to seriously analyze these pages and try to improve them, because it is very likely that people are not getting the information they expect or want.
Conversion data are arguably one of the most important pieces of information. Conversion data gives you a true understanding of how successful your site really is.
Organic vs Pay-Per-Clíck comparison that drives high quality traffíc to my site? This report compares paid and organic referrals with respect to number of visits, page views per visit, conversion rates and average visit value.Date Range throughout the report it gives you the ability to track your website statistics between various date ranges. At this time it only allows you to see a maximum of a month's data at a time. The reports also allow you to compare data, so you can find out how your site is tracking against a previous date period.
Beta Version which is just in the process of being released, provides a lot more flexibility, and one of the most exciting things about the new version is that it allows you to schedule reports, daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly. This is great news as it makes the process of accessing your website reports even easier.
Google Analytics Features offer many other features, and it is worth spending the time having a good look at them and trying to understand what they have to offer you. Alternatively, speak to your webmaster or SEO specialist and get them to help you understand how Google Analytics can help improve your website performance. By having a better understanding of it, you can potentially íncrease your profits significantly.
Conclusion
When you analyze the data from your website statistics with the intention of improving your site, or getting a good indication of how your site is performing, it is important that you have a decent snapshot of the data to work from, i.e. make sure that you are not making assumptions based on the data of a single day, as trends vary over time, and even from day-to-day. IMPORTANT- never become complacent! Make sure you review your website reports at least weekly or monthly--if not daily--to make sure that your website is performing to your expectations.


















