Welcome to June's ZooNews, from professional Web site design company Zoonini Web Services.

This month we take a look at the world of Web site visitor statistics, which can be a helpful way of learning about how audiences interact with your site: how many people are visiting, when are peak visiting times, and how people are finding your site. Most Web hosting packages come with at least one statistics package – AWStats, Urchin, Webalizer are some common ones – and the free Google Analytics service is also an excellent tool worth checking out.

To explore the practical usefulness of Web stats, I interviewed Jacki Hollywood Brown, Director of Internal Communications at Zoonini client Professional Organizers in Canada (POC), to find out about her hands-on experiences.

What kinds of things have you discovered by looking at the POC stats?

General trends, [like an] increase or decrease in visitors, what days of the week and what times of the day are most popular (helps in planning when to update the site), and what pages of my site are the most popular (should I spend the time maintaining those pages, what can I do to make those pages more popular). Keywords used to find the site helps improve SEO [search-engine optimization]. Also it was interesting to know how long people were spending looking at the site.

Can you tell when POC has been linked to from a popular site?

Yes, [we get] more referral traffic from that site. If the site is a news site or a member's site, the member may have had an interview or submitted an article [mentioning POC].

What have been the biggest surprises in looking at your stats?

The effect one news article had on our website was amazing. In October 2006 the Toronto Star ran an article about conference on the front page of the Business Section. The number of visitors to our site DOUBLED in one day! The other surprise was the amount of time visitors spend looking at the site. Sometimes 60% of visitors were there less than 2 minutes.

What advice would you give to someone about Web stats?

Understand the terminology behind the stats (i.e. what the words mean and how they apply). Stats must be looked at carefully over the long term. Look for general trends rather than itty bitty changes over a short period of time. Use the stats to your advantage. If the website's busiest day is Monday, have the site updated for Monday morning.

If a large majority of visitors are on your site for less than 2 minutes, then your site needs to be updated. People want something NEW to look at!

It is very interesting to know which browsers people are using. If a large percentage of people are using a specific browser, then I guess I'd better make sure that my website looks presentable in that browser and any videos, podcasts, or other graphics/bells/whistles are supported by that browser.

Let's look at some common measurements (or "metrics") you can track through Web statistics, also called "analytics." Bear in mind that all Web stats figures are only approximations due to the technical limitations of tracking software and other factors.

Hits – this is an often mis-used term. It refers to the number of individual files requested by a visitor to a Web page. In the simplest terms, if someone visits a page that contains 20 different images on it, it would show up as 21 hits. Not a very useful figure in most contexts, if you think about it! Saying a page got "21 hits" is not the same as saying that 21 people visited your page, although the term "hits" is frequently misused because it tends to be the largest number in your stats and can sound the most impressive. The motto "Hits stands for 'How Idiots Track Success'" is attributed to Web analytics guru Avinash Kaushik.

Unique visitors – this the figure that tells you approximately how many individual people visited your site in a given period.

Unique visits – the number of separate times your site was visited. So if one person visited your site 3 times, 3 unique visits would appear in your stats.

Average number of visitors – the average number of unique visitors who came to your site in a given period.

Visit duration – it can be interesting to see how long people are staying on your site. If the time is very short, perhaps they found what they are looking for quickly, or perhaps there wasn't enough "meat" to keep your visitors on the site for long.

Pages visited – how many different pages within your site were visited.

Top exit pages – the last page viewed before a visitor leaves your site.

Most/least requested pages – the most or least frequently visited pages.

Robots/Spiders – visits by the automated programs sent out by search engines to index the pages in your site. They have names like Googlebot, MSNbot and Yahoo slurp. Don't see any of these in your stats? Your site may not yet be indexed by the search engines. Talk to an SEO specialist about why your site may not be getting spidered.

Connect to site from – how people found your site, whether by directly typing the address into their browser (or using a bookmark); via Google, MSN, Yahoo or another search engine; or from an external page. This is where you can see other sites that have linked to yours.

Referrer spam – automated fake garbage links for porn sites and the like that show up in Web stats in an effort to try to boost these sites' search-engine ranking if search engines spider un-password-protected statistics pages.

Top search phrases – the most frequently used phrases put into search engines by visitors before reaching your site. For example, to date in 2007 for the Professional Organizers in Canada, the top ten search phrases were:

1. poc
2. professional organizer
3. professional organizers of canada
4. professional organizers
5. professional organizers in canada
6. professional organizers canada
7. organizers
8. www.organizersincanada.com
9. professional organizer canada
10. organizers in canada

Browsers – the Web browsers people are using to visit your site. (Microsoft Internet Explorer still dominates the browser market, but Firefox is gaining every year, so make sure to test your site in it.)

Operating systems – the platforms and operating systems in which people are viewing your site. As expected, PCs tend to lead, but Macintoshes are still a platform to be reckoned with, particularly in certain market segments including education and the arts. Don't forget to test your site on a Mac before going public to avoid unpleasant surprises. On the other hand, if WebTV users account for 0.0000001% of your users, you may not want to spend much time optimizing your site for that user segment.

Itching to know more about stats? Check out these glossaries from Surfstats and WebTrends.

Got a technology term you'd like demystified in ZooNews? Send it to questions@zoonini.com.

We've launched a one-page bilingual "starter" site for HR consultant Anne Pertus. The site plays off the tones and shapes in AHP's distinctive, elegant logo designed by frequent Zoonini collaborator Mobius2. Visit AHP to discover the strategic hiring solutions and management training services offered.

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of tackling 5 challenging questions from Web content guru A.C. Riley. Check 'em out!

Can't keep on top of the piles of legitimate and spam email flooding your inbox? The idea of declaring email bankruptcy as a coping strategy for email overload (though a concept that's been around for a while) is becoming increasingly popular. Erase all messages awaiting responses – perhaps sending out a mass mailing or autoresponder to correspondents explaining that they won't receive a personal response – and start with a fresh slate.

An idea well suited for a summertime email respite.... And on that note, I wish all ZooNews readers a wonderful, restful summer, whether or not you're planning an email bankruptcy of your own!

À la prochaine,

kp
aka Kathryn Presner