Web site traffic reporting and analytics are essential for any on line business. Web traffic is the amount of visitors that go to a web site. This measures the popularity of site and individual pages or sections of a Web Site. Web traffic can be analyzed by viewing the traffic statistics found in the web server log file, it automatically-generates a list. Web sites like Alexa Internet generate traffic rankings and statistics based on those people who access the sites while using the Alexa tool.

Google, for instance, by the close of 2004 had indexed in excess of eight billion pages. Google Analytics is an enterprises web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Google Information for Web masters indicates that the number of sites linking to a specific website address is the most important factor that determines what sites Google indexes.

Web traffic can be increased by submitting a site to search engines. Additional methods to increase visits is to purchase advertising, such as, bulk e-mail, and classified advertising. Web traffic can also be increased by purchasing off line advertising. Free traffic that come from search engines or article directories is call “organic”. Web masters who would like free traffic will trade links with other web masters. More traffic means more visitors to your site and more sales profits. Links multiply your your site relevance and drive quality traffic to it.

Search engine optimization (SEO) deals with the order in which web pages are ranked when keywords or phrases are typed into search engines. Searching the internet gives you the opportunity to check many different companies to see what they have to offer. Search engines love content and information articles and many people will read and link to articles that are interesting and informative for topics they are interested in.

Search Engine Optimization is one of your most important traffic building strategies. Search engines bring exposure, more viewers and customers to your business. Search engines are also the least costly way to market your business, products and services.

About the Author: I am interested in affiliate marketing and sharing my research and knowledge with others. I always have been amazed with the communication process, especially through the penning of creative thoughts on paper.

I have been there and done it all! I don’t even want to count the hours that I’ve spent for registering with the different article websites or emailing webmasters. I’ve always tried to figure out a way to get indexed in the search engines as soon as possible and to get a good page rank in no time. Then, one day, I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel: Directory submissions. Now please don’t immediately think of those free for all (FFA) links pages that will place your link on the Front Page for like 5 minutes or so. I mean well established link directories, websites that are really effective for getting your site indexed fast.

The good thing with link directories is that you practically have to do nothing but submit your website link, a title, short description and some keywords. Of course you also have to select a category under which your website should be filed, but even that is no problem at all as most link directories have a comprehensive list of categories available. When you have submitted your website it will most of the time be reviewed by a human editor. This might sound like a bottleneck at first, but when you think about all those crappy websites that don’t get listed because of the spam techniques they use, (remember those FFA link pages) it is absolutely an advantage!

Getting your site listed at link directories can be extremely easy if you follow some simple rules.

When build your website make sure that it doesn’t look like it was put together in 30 minutes or like it was made by a 5 year old. It’s really the quality that counts and that gets you eventually listed. If you now think: “Oh no, I have no chance to even get a single listing!”, then let me tell you that you shouldn’t worry so much. An easy way to find out what requirements your site has to fulfill to get listed is to browse through some of the directory listings and have a look at the websites that are already included. You might laugh out loud when you see some of them – not because they look crappy (OK, some even might), but because they are kept pretty simple and clean. I guarantee you that if you are serious about website building and use a good software and/or design you should not have to worry at all. Of course it is always a must to read the directory guidelines to see whether your site qualifies for a listing or not (e. g. there’s no suitable category available).

Some link directories might require to put a link back to them on your site, a so called reciprocal link. It could either be a simple link, some more advanced HTML stuff (don’t worry, you can copy & paste the code almost all of the time) or graphics. The benefit the link directories get from that is that when your website finally gets some good traffic and has high search engine listings some of your visitors might find their way to the link directory itself. Also it will give the link directories some page rank when your site has lots of back links (and you WILL get them by submitting to link directories). Make sure to put up those reciprocal links before you submit to the directories as some of them might instantly check for it and possibly reject your site.

If you follow these guidelines and make sure that you have some good and search engine optimized content on your website (not just dozens of pages of keywords and spam), then you will have no problems at all in getting listed with the link directories, getting picked up by the search engines and profiting from the floods of traffic. I personally do directory submissions almost daily and most of the time manage to get picked up by the link directories at the first try (sometimes I do some stupid mistakes by submitting a website and having misspelled the title or URL because of too much caffeine in my blood). As far as the traffic results are concerned I am more than satisfied. Lots and lots of my websites have TOP 10 listings in all of the search engines and have brought me significant traffic and product sales.

The best thing of all is that you don’t even have to manually search for those link directories by yourself. I use a software called Link Directory Submitter that does most of the work for me. I should be ashamed for my laziness, but I’d rather prefer to spend more hours lying in the sun and drinking Margaritas than submitting links for hours. To be honest, with automated software like Link Directory Submitter I could submit an army of websites in no time but hey, I’d also have to build them. Now that’s a vicious circle!

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The word “hits” is commonly used these days and can cause confusion for many website owners, because in reality your traffic should not just be seen as hits, it should be split in to two groups, hits and visitors.

A visitor: This can be described as a unique person entering your website that then goes on to other pages and browses your site. No matter how many pages they look at, they will still only count as one visitor in your server logs. For example, if a person entered a website which sells golf supplies and they look at a certain brand of golf ball; they would then be counted as one visitor despite how many differing brands they may choose to then browse.

A hit: This however is different in the way that it counts every time a person moves to a different page on your website. Meaning every time a visitor moves to a different page on your website, it will create a hit in your server logs. For example, a hit in the same golf supplies website would be for every different brand of golf ball that the same person chooses to look at.

So now that you know the difference between a visitor and a hit, which one should you be keeping your eye on when analyzing your website stats? Well, it is just as important to be watching your visitors as it is your hits. Your site visitors are important because this allows you to clearly see how many unique people are being directed to your website. It is always good to see how many different customers your website is attracting.

Your website hits are also important in the way that they show the number of pages that are currently being viewed on your site. You can use this information to see how well your website is doing its job. Is your website landing page enough to entice your visitors to dig deeper and spend more time on your website, reading more and more of its content and what it has to offer. Or are people simply hitting on to the first page and then quickly moving on?

So, here you have it, the difference between a hit and a visitor and if used correctly when analyzing your websites traffic, you can use them together to see how well your website is performing. Never underestimate the power of your website stats; it is analyzing these that will give you some insight in to the future of your website.

About the Author

Online business is growing rapidly but there is still such a large number of businesses missing out on this opportunity. Kaplang is a unique design firm that provides quality services for web design, web development, search engine optimization and all other web solutions. Make sure your business stands out from the crowd when adding an online presence to your new or existing business. http://www.kaplang.com/searchengine.html

Web Traffic vs. Engagement
Is the goal of SEO to get as much traffic as possible to a website? Many SEO companies will lead you to believe that more traffic is all there is to it. Granted, getting more traffic is a part of it, but more eyeballs on a web page do not necessarily mean achieving your business goals.

Look at your web analytics – specifically the keywords that brought in the majority of traffic – then evaluate the quality of this traffic over the past month or quarter. A high bounce rate and low average time on site for visits from a particular keyword can indicate one or all of these:

• Searcher cannot find anything relevant to her keyword and bounces.
• Searcher may find something relevant, but the page does not communicate directly with her intent… so she bounces.
• The keyword is not relevant for the site.

Let me suggest that the focus of SEO should be audience engagement, rather than traffic. According to Eric T. Peterson of Web Analytics Demystified, “Engagement is an estimate of the depth of visitor interaction against a clearly defined set of goals.” That’s pretty clear: Without specific goals, driving more traffic to your website sounds like a good option.

But if a visitor hits your site and bounces, your depth of visitor interaction is null. To truly engage a visitor requires relevance and targeted communication. So what is best for your business? I offer a different approach: using SEO to build audience engagement.

Steps to audience engagement via SEO:
1. Define the business goal/s “Getting on the first page of Google” or “Getting more traffic” are usually not much more than the hopes of individuals who have not defined strategic business goals. Instead, a targeted goal might be, “To generate quality leads from the website that result in 20% of annual business.”

2. Prioritize keywords according to relevant intent, rather than potential traffic volume It’s always interesting to see keyword research sorted to show the most popular to the least popular search terms. But could the real valuable search terms be those that are less popular, but rich with intent?

Most searchers can be divided into one of two camps: the researcher (who doesn’t yet know what he wants) and the purchaser (who has already done the research and knows exactly what she wants).

In some cases it makes sense to target both groups; you can sometimes see the intent with the search phrase. Now with your short list of researcher and purchaser search terms, can you confidently say that 90% of these searchers, if they clicked through to your site, would find something relevant, useful and of value? If you can’t, then your keyword is probably not rich with intent.

3. Prepare content that speaks directly to each motivation behind the searcher’s intent Researchers want product/service info, comparisons, evaluation criteria and RFP info. Purchasers want the best corporate fit, customer service, implementation and procurement info.

Let’s consider a sales training business as an example. Their most desired keyword is sales training, but it’s easy to see that the search term sales training is general, not descriptive. A person using that phrase is really not in purchase mode at the moment. The researcher’s motivation (sometimes known as “tire kickers”) is probably to get free tips, to compare sales training services and specifics so she can learn something and perhaps make a decision later.

Now consider a more descriptive keyword for this business: sales training consultant. Can you see the motivation behind this search? SEO providers with a “get more traffic” mentality side-step this issue. But to achieve audience engagement, you need guidance in the motivations behind the keywords you select. This drives content development that fits your audience and your site, as well as avoiding awkward or confusing phrasing.

4. Define the unique value proposition (UVP) Businesses that have invested in uncovering this piece of the puzzle are light-years ahead of their competition in all aspects of marketing. When it comes to SEO, the UVP has to be interpreted and applied to the searcher’s intent. It’s not necessary for an SEO consultant to understand the principles of semantics, but the right interpretation of the UVP can go a long way to achieving audience engagement.

5. Deliver on (and exceed) the UVP to create loyalty Do what you say you will do. Deliver on the promises you make. Do what is right from your new customer’s perspective, and go beyond their expectations to forge a lasting relationship. These are common sense, good business practices that bring future rewards.

“But,” you ask, “what does that have to do with SEO?” Everything, if you want long-term customer loyalty rather than more, sort-of-qualified traffic. Loyalty is a measurable metric and often comes with SEO rewards like fabulous testimonials and links from customer sites.

At the end of the day, businesses want SEO consultants who tailor their Internet marketing directly to the bottom line by bringing valuable traffic from multiple sources, optimized conversion rates and returning customers – rather than simply getting more traffic to the site.

Guest Author

Tom Shivers is an SEO consultant and president of Capture Commerce, Inc., founded in 2000 to help businesses leverage the Internet for growth and profit.