Tracking Your Users

• Why Traffic Matters

  It’s critical that you start tracking your visitors at launch so that you can gauge your site's growth. And it’s important that your tracking tools give you specific information about what sections are most popular and how your visitors are using your site.

• Understanding Traffic

  The most widely used metrics for measuring traffic to your site involve counting page views, visits and unique visitors. They all measure different things and all have shortcomings that affect their reliability. In addition, time spent on site, bounce rate and loyalty are other metrics worth your attention.

• Traffic Software

  Thankfully, technology has come a long way with regard to online traffic reporting. It’s no longer necessary to run log files through special software to analyze your traffic.

• Tracking Services

  Web-based tracking services are the most common practice for measuring your traffic.

• Surveys

  From the moment you launch your site, you should create ways to listen to the responses of people who visit it. Sometimes your readers will initiate responses through comment forms. At other times you'll want to solicit feedback, perhaps through an online or e-mail survey.