In vogue for web site design where statistics are concerned, are keeping your numbers relatively private, and putting the focus on the quality of your site. Learn more about common web statistics terms mean, and learn how to see what they mean for your site.

A hit, for example, is generated by each object that loads on your pages and registers with a web browser. That means if you have 5 graphics on a page, each one of them will register a hit. More important is a web page view, or page view for short. That measurement tells you that the page loaded successfully in your visitors browser. If you have an informational site, it may be important to have more page views - no one wants to have a resource site that people immediately click away from, for example. Conversely, if most of your blog readers follow you by your feed, you’ll only get a page view registered for each time they access your feed, no matter how many entries they read.

In these cases, it’s even more important to count the visitors. The visitors are counted by the number of times a unique address, computer or person visits your site. Sometimes, the address that would normally determine one visitor is shared, so when visitors go by unique IP address, as they are called, it isn’t always accurate.

It may under-estimate how many visitors, in the case where an Internet Service Provider such as AOL, may use the same IP address to represent all the visitors from one particular area. It may over-estimate how many visitors are coming to your site in the case of an auto-surf program or purchased visitors that aren’t generated by re-directed expired domains or manual surf exchanges. Your web visitor log or statistics program may register thousands of visitors from thousands of IP addresses, and yet none of them view your site.

A more reliable way to measure is by a program that places cookies on a remote user’s computer to track their visit, however some visitors don’t like them as much and may block them. The Google Web Analytics program uses cookies to track visitors, and is free.

If you have visitors that you think will have a problem with cookies, add the purpose of the cookie to your site’s privacy policy. Before you use a program that includes cookies, weigh the probability that more sophisticated users will block them, or not use your site, against how valuable having that data will be in helping you server your clients better.

Over the next few posts we’ll be talking about what’s sooo 1998, and what’s the next new thing in web site design.

Hit Counters

Any site created past 2002 should not have a hit counter that shows how many visitors have been to the site at the bottom of the page.

First of all, the number is not accurate. Hit counters count “hits”, not visitors, and not page views. We can go deeply into the differences another day, but suffice it to say that the number of “hits” says almost nothing about the success level of your site. Displaying it on your page screams “I’m a newbie!”

And your site, especially if it’s professional, should Never say that.

One great way to establish a connection with your website visitors is to tell them why you exist, up front. You should have at least one line that states your purpose, preferably on the home page of your site, like a tag line under your title, unless of course the name of your website implies its purpose. EzineArticles.com tells me why I’m there are soon as I arrive.

When you create this statement of purpose, remember that you’re supposed to be telling a story from your visitors point of view, not your own. You don’t want to say “We’re the sausage company. Our company was founded in 1980.” Aren’t your eyes glazing over right now.

How about this, though?

“Fat, juicy, ready-to-eat sausages. Delivered to your home overnight or available for pick-up, right now.”

Think about what the biggest and most immediate benefit a client would get from visiting your site. Then talk about it on your home page - it’s not often where visitors land, but it is where they go when they don’t understand where they are.