October 2, 2007

What is web traffic?

Web traffic is defined as the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site, determined by the number of visitors to the site and the number of pages they visit. Web traffic is measured to see the popularity of websites and individual pages or sections within a site in addition to discovering if there are any specific trends, such as one specific page being viewed mostly by people in a specific country. There are many ways to monitor this traffic and the collected information is used to help structure sites, highlight security problems or indicate a potential lack of bandwidth.

How do I see web traffic?

Web traffic can be analyzed by viewing the traffic statistics found in the web server log file, an automatically-generated list of all the pages served. A hit is generated when any file is served. The page itself is considered a file, but images are also classified as files, therefore, a page with 5 images could generate up to 6 hits (the 5 images and the page itself). A page view is generated when a visitor requests any page within the web site – a visitor will always generate at least one page view (the main page) but could generate many more.

What can I monitor?

The following types of information are often collated when monitoring web traffic:

• The number of visitors
• The average number of page views per visitor – a high number would indicate that the average visitors go deep within the site, possibly because they like it or found the site useful or interesting. Conversely, it could indicate an inability to find desired information easily
• Average visit duration – the total length of a user's visit
• Average page duration – how long a page is viewed for
• Domain classes – all levels of the IP Addressing information required to deliver Webpages and content.
• Busy times – the most popular viewing time of the site would show when the best time to do promotional campaigns would be and when the most ideal time would be to perform maintenance
• Most requested pages – the most popular pages
• Most requested entry pages – the entry page is the first page viewed by a visitor and shows the pages that are attracting visitors the most
• Most requested exit pages – the most requested exit pages could help find bad pages, broken links or the exit pages may have a popular external link
• Top paths – a path is the sequence of pages viewed by visitors from entry to exit, with the top paths identifying the way most customers navigate through the site
• Referrers - The host can track the (apparent) source of the links and determine which sites are generating the most traffic for a particular page.

Location, Location, Location!

Location is one of the most important factors when setting up a retail store and the same holds true for online websites. Retail stores may want to be located in a busy mall or on a popular street, while ideal location to a website is the web address, for example an easy to remember name with a popular extension (.com or .org) makes for a great location.

Are there different kinds of traffic?

All traffic is not created equal, as in a retail store, traffic may not be the right fit for the product or message. Traffic that fits your message should satisfy the following four criteria:

1. Targeted

There is no value in generating untargeted traffic to your website, unless you are providing a mass product/service along the lines of Facebook or YouTube. Targeted traffic brings prospects to your website that you can nurture and persuade into being customers. This may seem apparent, however, you will be amazed by how many marketers sell products that teach you how to generate tremendous amounts of traffic that is simply untargeted. The numbers may look good in theory, but it is meaningless because it does not necessarily generate revenue.

2. Consistent

In order to build a sustainable long term online presence, you need a consistent flow of traffic. Sudden bursts of traffic due to a special one time off marketing strategy are great, but are short-lived. It is a good strategy to chase such efforts if the return on investment (ROI) is positive, but that is where the trail ends. Think of all the products that internet marketing gurus have launched; they generate a sea of traffic and buyers within a specific period of time, however, the traffic slows down resulting in dismal sales figures after that time if they do not build other consistent web traffic sources.

3. Buyer’s mentality

Sometimes targeted traffic is simply not enough. You want to generate traffic from proven buyers who have a higher probability of purchasing your products. Joint ventures with other parties to a responsive list of subscribers tend to have a bigger group of people with buyer’s mentality. While this form of web traffic is ideal, it is the hardest to attain.

4. Repeat Traffic

Are your prospects coming back to your website? Or are they simply on a touch and go basis, never to come back again? It is no surprise that portals, authority websites that generate good content or provide ongoing services are the most successful. They provide consistent touch points with prospects which eventually lead up to a sale sometime in the future.

Remember to keep these four criteria in mind whenever you employ a new web traffic generation tactic for your websites to ensure maximum exposure of your website and to maintain a sustainable online presence for your organization. Not all traffic jams are bad, just the ones where you are stuck in one place.

References

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_traffic
2. http://www.alvinhuang.com/generating-web-traffic-part-1/