Tracking Visitors to Your Website

Are you a new Webmaster wishing that there were a way to figure out how many people are visiting your site?  Well, the good news is that there are many ways of doing this and it is easier than you think!  It is important for beginning webmasters to be able to track hits on their website and to be able to understand the information that tracking can provide.

For beginning webmasters, knowing the technology that is available to track browser information is essential in choosing the correct way of tracking hits.  It is important to be realistic about the amount of information that a Webmaster will need to make effective use of the new website.  While it might seem like more information is better, this is not always the case.  Sometimes, more information can just be more details to sift through and can be overwhelming.    

The simplest type of tracking technology is the page hit counter.  These are available for free many places on the web, a Webmaster simply has to download them and add them to the website.  In its least sophisticated form, these page counters simply count the number of hits that a certain website receives.  The downside of this simple version is that there is no distinguishing whether a website has been hit one time by one hundred browsers or one hundred times by one browser.  There are slightly more sophisticated versions of the basic page hit counter than will be able to limit counting to tracking unique hits, in other words eliminating the tracking of repeat site viewers.  Some page counters are also able to track the source of the site hit.  This will allow the Webmaster to know what sites lead to the Webmaster’s site.

There are also much more complicated information trackers that webmasters can use to determine how effective their site is on the web.  Again, it is important for a webmaster to be realistic about the amount of information that is needed, as most of the counters that track detailed information are offered by agencies that charge fees.  Sometimes more detailed information is offered through the servers, as they often log some of this info automatically for a certain period of time.  Some of the information that can be gathered by the more complicated counters includes such information as the time the site was accessed, from what IP address the website was accessed, the amount of time browsers spend on the site and the files that were downloaded from the site.  One very important aspect that can be tracked by some of the more technical page counters is the ability to track keywords that browsers use to find sites.  This allows the Webmaster to know what words “pop up” in keyword searches in search engines. 

With all of these technical details available, why would a Webmaster need all of this information?  This helps the webmasters in a multiple ways as they seek to generate more hits on their site.  The first and simplest way that page counters can assist a Webmaster is by providing information on the keywords that bring browsers to the page.  By knowing this information, a Webmaster can tweak the site to include more of the keywords, change the keywords, or make them stronger.  Knowing this information will allow the Webmaster to increase the number of hits.

Compiling information will also help the Webmaster be able to make the proper changes to the layout of the site.  For example, if many browsers hit on the main page of the site, but then do not proceed further, there is most likely something wrong with the flow of information or the ease at which the browser is able to find their way around the site.  This is extremely important information is a Webmaster is trying to sell a product.

Tracking browser information is not a difficult process for the beginning Webmaster.  It is simply finding a product that will provide the kind of information that will be the most helpful.