Article
It's a Hit! Gauging Success through Traffic Analysis
Visitor Behavior
You can occasionally analyze visitor behavior as well. For instance, a quick review of the stats may indicate the pages visitors use to enter and leave your site, which, in turn, can tell you which portions of your site are the most popular, and which sections need work.
If your site spans multiple topics, this analysis might also help you identify the topics that interest your users the most. For instance, if you review Mac and PC hardware and most of your visitors read the Mac reviews, then you might consider focusing more on the Mac section and phasing out the PC information (or developing it into a separate site). But this information's not only handy for your reference -- it's also useful in dealings with potential advertisers. Furthermore, if you run a community-based site, these details can indicate how many lurkers you may have, and if you run an article-based site, the stats can indicate which articles or authors are the most popular.
Traffic Patterns Over Time
Other good statistics to keep an eye on are those that measure traffic patterns over time. These can indicate not just the times at which your site receives the most traffic, but can also provide real insights into you audience -- a clear picture of your visitors' usage over time can suggest the reasons why they visit your site.
For instance, I noticed that traffic to my educational site is closely tied to the school year, so on weekends, holidays, and in the summer, my traffic levels drop. This information suggested that my key users were students, which has allowed me to target my advertising accordingly. Another key benefit of knowing when your site receives the most traffic is that you can then schedule downtime (for upgrades and maintenance) around the hours when usage is at its lowest.
Wrap Up
This article was intended as a primer for Web traffic analysis, but for more information on some of the topics that were mentioned here, visit the links below:
List of search engine user agents:
How to ban bad people/robots:
- http://www.bignosebird.com/apache/a9.shtml
- http://www.fleiner.com/bots/
- http://evolt.org/article/Using_Apache_to_stop_bad_robots/18/15126/index.html