Important website stats to track
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In the month of July I got very close to a big number that I track. I was up to 95,000 pageviews for the month. I have to think that if I push then maybe the slow month of August will help me pass that magical 100,000 pageviews across my sites. This got me to thinking what stats I should focus on.
Whatever we focus on will make us understand and control. If I am looking at pageviews then I can do things like promote to get more pageviews but what if I decide to look at pageviews per visit? If I concentrate on enhancing the exit point for my readers then perhaps I can increase that from 1.4 to 1.5 pages per visitor. That would by itself get me over 101,000 views even if my number of visitors stays the same.
I use two pieces of Google to watch my stats, Google Analytics for individual bigger sites to track all stats on those sites and I put Google Adsense on every page of every site of mine to help me track pageviews as the day and month goes on. I know my total pageviews becuase I am able to see those pageviews.
So here is a short list of the stats that I like to follow and that are great to enhance to increase profitability.
Total Pageviews - This I track just be watching my Google Adsense numbers through the day and then assessing the numbers at the end of the month compared to the month before. If I add content, change page layouts across a site, or do SEO work to position pages or the site better in the search engines then this will reflect directly in the number of pageviews. I do my Adsense using URL channels so that I can track increases in traffic for each site individually as wll as all at the same time.
I also use Adsense Notifier in Firefox to watch the adsense stats easily thoughout the day (although this can really burn time for no reason)
Pageviews/visit - This I do using Google Analytics for each big site that I do deeper tracking for. All sites are different depending on the kind of visitors and the targeting of my information. If I can make my visitors interested inmoving from page to page in my site then I will build better trust and buyers will be more apt to buy.
Clickthroughs/visit - Two places that I look at this. I look at my Google Adsense clickthrough and I also watch the number of visits through to Clickbank and to Linkshare, Commission Junction and others. What I want to do here is see how each actual sales page or review page converts so that I can see the effect of any changes that I make. If you logon to your account in Clickbank go to the Reporting tab and then you will see and Analytics link where you can track your clickthroughs. This a great stat to watch.
Income/pageview - This is actually a bit of a hybrid number. What this tells you is how good your pages are converting to actual sales or clickthroughs. If I have a blog and make a fundamental change that affects all pages then I will see the income per pageview increase or drop but if the work is SEO type work then the number of pageviews may also increase. We want to increase our income per pageview so that we can eventaully buy targeted traffic and have na idea of how this will convert ahead of time.
Income/day - This is easy, Adsense+ CJ+ Linkshare+ everyhwere else. I like this number becuase it is actual dollars but the other stats are going to lead to this.
Newsletter and Autoresponder signups - I watch this on a daily basis and have written about increasing signups before. I just watch each day to see how many signups that I have and when I start using popups to have people signup I find that I decrease the number of instant sales from my sites but I suspect I am getting a lot more back end sales.
I bet I could write an article about each of these stats but one of the things that I am looking at now in my own online business is drilling down to see what make the biggest leverage difference to my business. I will write about that tomorrow.
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These are some really detailed and great tips, I myself have been monitoring my exit pages closely and also trying to improve my bounce rate through on-site internal linking.
Thanks Bill
JR