Tag Archives: website counter

Website Traffic Tracking Metrics

Tracking measurements are not only critical  for technical or scientific processes but are also useful and effective for website performance. In fact, for online businesses, website tracking is not an option but an indispensable tool for sustaining your business.

Pageviews and other metrics

For anyone maintaining a website, it is always important to know how many visitors your website receives. It is also important to know how much time they spend on your website, where they come from and what webpages they have viewed, among other things.

A useful metric is the pageview or page impression. It is the number of times a web page is accessed  regardless of how many hits were generated.  Another useful metric is the unique view. It is a pageview made by a unique person or search robot normally identifiable through a unique IP address.

ISP statistical packages

Sometime ago, a mere website counter which counts and displays the number of visitors a website receives was sufficient. But the data from these counters are unreliable and incomplete. Tracking analysis softwares offer a more reliable option to analyse user behavior and website traffic. These trackers provide detailed information as to the date, time, visitors, unique visitors, browsers used, pageviews, traffic referrers and many other metrics.


Monthly Website Traffic from AWStats

Most webhosting plans include at least one free tracking software; the most popular of which are AWStats and Webalizer. These are open-source, free programs that are very easy to use.  Both have a nice graphical interface and the statistical data are presented in a nice layout which can be easily understood. If you are looking for a webhost, it will definitely be wise to choose that ISP which offers such complimentary statistical packages as part of your hosting plan.

Google Analytics website metrics

In addition to these complimentary tracking softwares, there is always Google Analytics which you can get for free and install painlessly in your website.  Google analytics provide more important website traffic metrics like the number of pages a visitor visits, the average time visitors stay on your website, the bounce rate and the number of new or returning visitors to your site. If you have an ecommerce site you can track how many visitors become paying customers.  Or you may just want to track how many visitors become opt-in subscribers to your mailing list.

Bounce Rate

Because of its filtering mechanisms which are usually not found in other statistical packages, Google Analytics provide a more accurate and relevant website visitor statistics. A good example is the bounce rate which tells you the number of one-page visits to your site. That means you can know the rate of those people who leave your website without seeing a second page.  In order to have an accurate measurement of the bounce rate, you should therefore not include your own visits to your site.

Bounce rate is just one metric you can track and improve on in order to enhance the performance of your website. And definitely it’s one of those useful strategies for the success of your online business.