Those interested site statistics (number visitors, visitor origin, number page views, etc.) regarding my website/platform can take an unlimited and indeept look at the automatically generated site statistics. I use AWStats to generate this information. How it is installed and configured is covered here.

With regards to putting advertisements onto my website/platform, which is something I get asked a lot, please go here for more information.

Purpose of Site Statistics

What people refer to as site statistics, search analytics, search log analysis and clickstream analysis, when used effectively, can be one of the best tools in a marketing arsenal and is of great value for the IT folks in order to plan for future demand. With this page I will briefly explain what site statistics are, why they are so important and how it can be used to get the most out of it — the best possible user-experience from a users point of view and also the best possible commercial value from a corporate point of view.

At first, let us take a closer look at the usual search box — it is an essential part of any large website and what billions of people use to find information on the Internet if the use the search box provided by some search engine like Yahoo or Google for example.

People search for things in all sorts of ways and what people search for can be effected by all sorts of things including language, regional variations, user associations, jargon and even the level of education of our users.

The keywords and key phrases that our website visitors use can tell us all sorts of things about what they expect to find on our site and how they expect to interact with the information.

Just for the moment, imagine we would need to find out about this in some conventional way e.g. by inviting folks over, one by one, interviewing them on their search behavior and the like ... What if we could get thousand times that information in more detail and also, in just a fraction of time? We can, ... using a modern approach like for example Awstats does just that.

In the industry, we call this the science of search analytics or search log analysis, and when used effectively, it can be one of the best tools in our marketing arsenal which in the end means we can provide better services to our customers much more effectively which in turn means more money for us and thus more and faster growth for our business.

By knowing what others do not know or knowing things before others do, it took Google just one decade to go from a two-man-geek-show to a fortune 500 multi-billion dollar enterprise. So, if one still thinks acting by instinct or intention only will suffice for his business nowadays, well, he is wrong ... plain and simple.

On our website a search box can also sometimes be a catch-all for poor navigation. If people are using our website frequently, then it can indicate that our users are frustrated and thus we know that our content and even more so, the structure may be the source of the problem.

Bad website navigation can cost us customers and therefore sales. But looking at what users are searching for can help us to improve our website and increase user satisfaction. So even on the smallest of websites, it is worth including some sort of search just for these reasons except we have good reasons not to do so.

Let us consider an example — assume a council website mentions Privacy and FOI as a main menu item. Now, not every resident is going to know what FOI means, actually I would say there are only few if at all. If they are such a user and want access to council minutes (which is in this section), then they may miss this information entirely and go for the search, or worse still, call customer service, tying up valuable resource time.

Without a search box on the page (just a link on the main menu), measuring this audience can become difficult. We should be able to see through our web-server search logs

wks:/home/sa# tail /var/log/apache2/access.log
::1 - - [31/May/2009:13:10:59 +0200] "GET /ws/publi  [skipping ... ]  S; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042805 Iceweasel/3.0.9 (Debian-3.0.9-1)"
::1 - - [31/May/2009:13:11:00 +0200] "GET /misc/mm/  [skipping ... ]  rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042805 Iceweasel/3.0.9 (Debian-3.0.9-1)"
::1 - - [31/May/2009:13:11:00 +0200] "GET /misc/mm/  [skipping ... ]  US; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042805 Iceweasel/3.0.9 (Debian-3.0.9-1)"
::1 - - [31/May/2009:13:11:00 +0200] "GET /misc/mm/  [skipping ... ]  nux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042805 Iceweasel/3.0.9 (Debian-3.0.9-1)"
::1 - - [31/May/2009:13:11:00 +0200] "GET /misc/mm/  [skipping ... ]  nux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042805 Iceweasel/3.0.9 (Debian-3.0.9-1)"
::1 - - [31/May/2009:13:11:00 +0200] "GET /misc/mm/  [skipping ... ]  en-US; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042805 Iceweasel/3.0.9 (Debian-3.0.9-1)"
::1 - - [31/May/2009:13:11:00 +0200] "GET /misc/mm/  [skipping ... ]   rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042805 Iceweasel/3.0.9 (Debian-3.0.9-1)"
::1 - - [31/May/2009:13:11:00 +0200] "GET /misc/mm/  [skipping ... ]  en-US; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042805 Iceweasel/3.0.9 (Debian-3.0.9-1)"
::1 - - [31/May/2009:13:11:13 +0200] "GET /favicon.  [skipping ... ]  -1)"
::1 - - [31/May/2009:13:11:16 +0200] "GET /favicon.  [skipping ... ]  -1)"
wks:/home/sa#

the number of times certain words are used to find this page. We can then use this information to tune and tweak our website's menus pages and/or product categories.

Sure, I would hit the CLI (Command Line Interface) and visit the web-server's logfiles in order to figure out that information ... no problem, but what would ordinary people do?! Clearly, ordinary folks need another layer on top that provides them with the same information in a manner so they can access it easily plus it should be presented to them in manner so they can understand it e.g. graphically, something I do for this website/platform is perfect for ordinary folks as well as geeks.

There are plenty of search log statistics programs out there that have been available for many years. Verbalize, AWStats (the one I use for this website/platform) to name just a few.

They often feature graphs and lots of top 10 lists to represent the data (which the web-server driving our website constantly writes into our website logfiles), but what they often do not do is help explain what the information means.

There is a difference between statistical programs and services which help us to analyze and make use of the data collected in our logfiles.

Aside AWStats¹, Google Analytics² too, is a great free tool for measuring the performance of our website. It provides useful information on the trends of our users through a site.

However, I strongly recommend not to rely on some off-site solution which is managed by some third party when it comes to critical infrastructure and information — running our own software is way more powerful (e.g. more/better details), secure, accurate and adaptable than any off-site solution can ever be. That is why I use my own stack — own hardware, full control over any bit of software, ranging from the core components of the OS (Operating System) to the site statistics/analytics program which is AWStats in this case.

Of particular interest in all programs that help us analyze our site statistics, there are two things which are of most interest to us:

1. user paths i.e. the most popular routes through the site (also known as clickstream analysis) and
2. analysis of keywords and other relevant statistics on a per page basis.

These things differentiate analytics programs from simple web-log tools. They are particularly useful in terms of knowing which keywords people used to find a particular page and thus can tell us how to make the page easier to find on the Internet.

So how can these things help us grow/optimize our business? Well, I will quickly explain.

These things can help us to form a more user-centred design approach or help us to evolve our website navigation to maximise selling and or cross-selling opportunities.

This sort of information is also key to our search engine optimization efforts. Afterall, what our customers are looking for on our site is usually the same thing that they will be searching for on Internet search engines like for example Google, Altavista or Yahoo etc.

Understanding what keywords people use can be critical to refining our keyword marketing campaigns for cost-per-click advertising (such as Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing) for example.

In the end, only management which understand this core issue of search analytics and system administrators and programmers who can implement improvements into working technology, have the ability to provide a company with a definite competitive benefit over its competitors.

A rule of thumb with regards to what needs our attention for getting a better ranking withing search engines are the domain name of our website (possibly unique and easy to remember), its main menus, titles of pages, content on pages and metadata keywords. All those have huge practical and strategic marketing applications and impact on what ranking our website gets within search engines like Google for example.

From a non commercial point of view, having graphically visible site statistics is good for the same reason a pilot likes to have all the gadgets and visuals that tell him about the current flight condition, altitude, speed, bearing etc.

I set up AWStats and use it to provide site statistics for exactly that reason — I, the pilot of this website/platform, need to know where we are going and what our current flight condition is, my passengers (the users/visitors to this website/platform), they deserve full and unlimited access to that information as well because we are all in this together.