In both business and life, there is a saying about someone having the inability to see the forest for the trees. As with most clich's, this one has a certain amount of credibility. On the web, it can be extremely accurate.
You have probably already come to realize this, but running a site takes time. For fools with hundreds of sites [that would be me], sleep is something one hears of, but never experiences. With the daily workload, it can be very easy to strike gold with a site and not even realize it. In this case, I am talking about the stats program for a site.
Stats programs are simply server add-ons that record who and what is coming to your site and what they do when they get there. If you are not checking your stats program, you should be. There are a zillion programs, but a common denominator with each should be information such as the number of visitors, hits, where they came from and how long they stayed on your site. If you take the time to think about it, this information is invaluable.
When analyzing stats programs, most webmasters tend to focus on daily or weekly stats. To avoid actually working, we might look at this month compared to the previous one. While taking this approach can give you a portrait of a moment in time for your site, it can also be inadequate. No, I am not talking about sexual performance.
As we get to the end of 2006, it is as good a time as any to look back over the last 12 months and analyze your site. In truth, you can do it for any 12 month period, but this is a simple timing method. What are we looking for in the stats? Well, the first step is to make a list of the products and keyword phrases you have been pushing with your marketing. Is the marketing producing visitors? How many of those products you are pushing actually sold, to wit, what was your conversion rate for the year. Is it what you expected? If not, why?
When doing this analysis, you should also pay close attention to the overall pages and products. If you look at the visitor rates across your site for the year, you will almost always be surprised to see a product or keyword phrase being used that you never gave a second thought to. This, my friend, is where you find the gold in your stats. Might you want to start pushing that product in your PPC campaign or keyword phrase in your SEO? Your customers or clients are essentially telling you that they want it. Give them what they want and you can have a very profitable 2007.
When analyzing your stats for 2006, there is a ton of information you can glean from them. I could write 30 pages on what to look for, but it really isn't necessary. Once you start looking at the stats, things will become apparent very quickly.
