WEBSITE DATA COLLECTION

Data Collection Is Like Insider Trading for Your Website. It Gives You the Information You Need to Improve (But Legally!).

Website data collection is easy to do these days. And, do it you must. If you don't collect data, you might as well never run a test or trial for anything regarding your website, because you'll never know if it worked or not. Here's how to do it:

Website Data Collection: Statistics Providers

Who is going to collect data related to your website or blog? Well, it depends. As you probably know, I recommend Site Build It! as an all-inclusive website creation and development service. It wouldn't be all-inclusive if it didn't provide statistics, right?!

Both Site Build It! and MemberGate (which I also recommend) provide data collection and statistics regarding traffic to your website, as do many other comprehensive website solutions.

If you develop your own website or blog from scratch (or with a WYSIWYG editor), you will likely use one of the free tracking tools available as a script from your hosting service or from Google.

Website Data Collection: Google & AWStats

Google offers a free service called Google Analytics. This program will give you valuable information about your website's bounce rate (people who visit your site and then immediately leave), the time visitors spend on your website (daily and monthly), the country of origin of the visitor (or state if within the U.S.A.), and many other tools.

AWStats is an open source analytics tool. Many of the Inexpensive Website Hosting Services offer easy installation of this resource through a script available in the control panel.

Both services are free and can be used together. This strategy is the one I recommend for people who don't use one of the services already mentioned above (Site Build It! or MemberGate).

Website Data Collection: Email Statistics

Part of your online business should be a newsletter (see Why Start a Newsletter, How to Start a Newsletter, and Starting a Newsletter). Just as the ability to capture statistics is important for your website or blog, it is equally important for your email newsletter.

No one does it better than AWeber. With AWeber, you can track who opens the emails you send and who clicks the links in them. The service provides easy-to-read and easy-to-understand reports and graphs to help you specific groups of people for marketing campaigns.

AWeber is truly a powerful service for everything related to email marketing. Check out what they can do for you. Click the link to go to AWeber for all the details.

Website Data Collection: Alexa Rank

So, how do you know if all your stats are doing anything for you? As you adjust your strategies, your traffic increases. That is the most important statistic of all. The more traffic you get to your website, the more you serve and the more you profit.

If you want to see how your website or blog stacks up against the competition, check out your Alexa Rank. Alexa Rankings are like the Nielson Ratings of the television world, but for the internet. People opt-in to a tracking system that records the websites they visit. The data is then compiled and websites are ranked according to their popularity, either in the world or in a particular country.

To see how you are doing, go to www.Alexa.com. You can see a graphical representation of your website's daily traffic trends and see if your website is increasing in popularity relative to other websites and blogs.

Website Data Collection: Two Important Principles

Numbers, numbers everywhere! How do you read the numbers? There are two specific principles that you can apply to your collected website data and gain insight. Both are easy to apply and understand. Click the links to understand about Pareto's Principle Websites and The Long Tail Principle.

Website Data Collection: Conclusion

Website data collection should be a natural part of creating and developing a website. It also can be a great source of encouragement as your efforts pay dividends and your traffic increases. Use the resources on this page, and you will help your online venture be more successful sooner.

Next up: don't mess up! Now that you've got a plan for capturing data to guide you in your website development, it is time to discuss what you need to do to keep the prosecution off your back. Click the link to understand Website Legal Obligations.

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