Web Promotion - Web Development and Design Foundations with XHTML - page 513

● Web Analytics. The Web Analytics Association defines Web analytics as “the
measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the pur-
poses of understanding and optimizing Web usage”. Every visitor to your
Web site, including those who were referred by search engines, is recorded in
your Web site log files. A Web site log consists of one or more text files which
record each visit to your site—capturing information about your visitors and
about referring Web sites. You can discover whether your keywords are
successful and which search engines are being used by analyzing your log.
You can also determine the days and times your site is visited, the operating
systems and browsers being used, the paths that visitors take through the site,
and much more. The log is a rather cryptic text file. See Figure 13.4 for a
partial log.
Figure 13.4
A Web site log file contains useful information but can be difficult to read
Web analytics software can analyze your log file and create easy-to-use charts and
reports. If you have your own Web site and domain name, many Web host providers
allow free access to the log and may even run Web analysis reports as part of the
monthly Web hosting fee. By checking information in the log, you can determine not
only what keywords are working, but also which search engines your visitors are using.
Webtrends ( http://webtrends.com ) is a commonly used tool for web log analysis. See
Figure 13.5 for part of a log analysis report showing keywords actually used at Yahoo!
to find a particular Web site.
Web log analysis is a powerful marketing tool because you can determine exactly how
visitors are finding your site. This lets you know which keywords are working and
which are not. Perhaps with additional thought, you can add new variations of the
productive keywords to your list. If you examine Figure 13.5 you will notice that