How to collect Web Site Statistics

fmuellerfmueller Auckland, NZ Icrontian
edited January 2009 in Internet & Media
I've recently become the web master for my local fish club, and created a brand new site for them at www.ohiocichlid.com. So far I have never bothered collecting statistics for my sites, but one of the main goals of this site is to give something back to businesses that support the club by giving them a small ad right on the front page of the site. It would be nice if we could tell them how many hits that page gets. What's the easiest way to collect that kind of data?

Many thanks

Frank

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Google analytics.
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Yup, that's what Icrontic uses.

    https://www.google.com/analytics/
  • fmuellerfmueller Auckland, NZ Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Excellent! Many thanks for the quick response. These forums are the best when it comes to any kind of computer support! It is here that I found out about WordPress some years ago, which I now use as CMS for any site I built. Best of all, there is an easy plugin to use Google Analytics with a WordPress site - no coding, no fuss. I just installed it in 5min :thumbup
  • BLuKnightBLuKnight Lehi, UT Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Hope I'm not piping in too late. Google Analytics is a good choice, especially with the WordPress plug-in. Besides the your page views information, you should also have a look at where your traffic is coming from. This breaks down into two categories: referring domains and keywords. Watching this report will help you better understand what's driving traffic to the site.

    Another recommendation I would have is to define what activities on the website make it successful. I see two worthwhile areas right off the bat. The first would be to track the amount of traffic driven to your sponsors. Here, you can use that information to justify why these sponsors should continue to contribute to the organization.

    The second item I would track is the amount of people that sign up to use the forums. (I'd also track when people who are already members sign in.) Participation is a great metric to help understand the percentage of visitors that want to interact with the online community. If you ever setup a form which allows people to sign-up for a newsletter, track that too.

    Those are the best ideas I can come up with. I'm pretty sure it's possible to track these in Google Analytics, but I'm not sure how exactly to do it as I haven't had time to mess around with it much. I've been spoiled with a more powerful Web Analytics package which unfortunately is not free.

    Web Analytics rocks! Enjoy!
  • fmuellerfmueller Auckland, NZ Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Many thanks for the good ideas. I had it running for a day now and it's pretty cool what kind of stuff you can find out. I was somewhat familiar with web analytics already, because I was responsible for a site at work some years ago - not that we ever did much with the wealth of data we got. In Google Analytics it's very easy to see where traffic is coming from, and it will obviously be relevant to analyze that once I've collected data for a little while. What I haven't been able to find yet is where traffic is going to from the site - which is what I want most, hoping that it will go to our sponsors. If somebody here is a little familiar with Google Analytics, I'd be grateful for a hint where to find that, but I haven't given up hope yet that I might find it by myself, once I've got time dig around more :D

    Frank
  • MiracleManSMiracleManS Chambersburg, PA Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    As an aside, my company is currently looking into google analytics in place of our current system. So far its nothing but good things.
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Yup I use analytics on my chapter's website and it is damned amazing, and free too. It provides a wealth of information. And their goals are very nice. It allows me to see where people come into the website, where they go, and where they leave. I can also see where people ditch on on certain goals we have and the changes I have made in content organization have greatly improved my percentages.
  • DJ_EvergreenDJ_Evergreen MB, Canada Member
    edited January 2009
    How often does the stats update?
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Analytics tends to lag by a couple hours, but never more than a quarter-day, really. It's kinda silly to look at partial-day stats anyway.
  • BLuKnightBLuKnight Lehi, UT Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Lincoln, I highly disagree. Knowing the trends for the current day allows for website restructing and behavioral targeting which can mean the difference of millions in profits.

    Companies pay buku bucks to get they're raw data is quickly as possible. At Omniture (plug for my team - Engineering Services) we sell a premium solution that gets customers hit level data (which comes in hourly segments) as soon as it becomes available from our flagship product for even further in-depth analysis.
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Right, if you're Amazon.com. For the people posting in this thread, it's silly.
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