There are lots of different website statistic packages available for webmasters to use to monitor the use of their websites. But do you know what you are measuring?
There are many different ways of measuring people’s use of your website including pageviews, visitors and unique visitors. Some people only care about showing the biggest numbers to their visitors so will show a visitor count based on pageviews, but is that really how you should measure your traffic?
You shouldn’t use a stats package to show off to others on the internet – it should be used to understand your own visitors. Google Analytics is free to everyone and offers an excellent analysis of your site. Not only that, you can choose to exclude IP addresses. I would always suggest blocking your own IP address to make sure you don’t get artificially inflated figures.
Learning to use Google Analytics to your advantage can take time as there is a lot of information to take in. You need to take time to understand what the different metrics are telling you.
For example, if you have a page that has a high bounce rate*, you can deduce that either the user found what they required on that page so didn’t need to visit any more pages, or more likely the page didn’t answer their query so they just left the site.
It is then down to you to analyse your page and decide if the content is wrong, the keywords you are targeting are wrong etc.
You need to be aware that Analytics will not tell you what to do – only what is happening!
If you only use one stats package, I would suggest using Google Analytics. If you need help analysing the results, there are lots of web professionals out there who use this package everyday. All new websites that are built by SpiderServe incorporate a Google Analytics account.
*Bounce rate – people enter the website on that page and then leave without navigating away from that one page.
A lot of people seem to get confused about what domain extension they should have for their website. Let’s face it, most non-webbie people seem to refer to all websites as .com – “try domain.com” someone will tell you. “Maybe it’s .uk – I can’t remember”.
When I buy a domain and I am serious about the longenvity of it, I will buy both the .com and .co.uk domains, and will redirect one to the other. This means that even if someone typed in mydomain.com, it would automatically forward to mydomain.co.uk. Those of us who work withing the internet industry, will generally know that if a .com doesn’t work, replace it with .co.uk or even .net and you will probably find the site you are looking for. Most people using the internet do not have the knowledge that we do, so the domain issue can be a problem.
So which extension should you redirect all other extentions to? Should you have a .com or a .co.uk extension?
Although the .com extension was originally created for the USA, it is now seen as a global domain. If you are targeting the UK as your main customer base, then use the .co.uk domain. It will reinforce to the search engines, the fact that you are targeting the UK market. If you are going to be a global company, then use the .com.
There is one final thing to consider. The combination of your web host location and your domain can have an impact on your search engine optimisation. If you use a non-UK web host and you use a .com domain, you may experience trouble in ranking for Google.co.uk as there is no immediate signal to the search engines that you are targeting the UK market.
In Summary, you should use your country specific extension when targeting your local market, and also when you are using non-uk hosting.
As a web developer, I get frustrated with Internet Explorer – every version has different bugs that affect the way the brower renders a website. It is something that the average person doesn’t think about because we try to make sure that websites look the same on all browsers.
It is made all the more frustrating because people don’t upgrade their browsers when new versions come out. I still get hits to various websites from people using Internet Explorer 5!
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that people upgrade just to make my life easier. There is a far more sinister reason to ensure you keep your browser – whichever browser it is – up to date.
I am aiming this at Microsft’s Internet Explorer because of the many security issues they regularly have, but it applies to all browsers.
Software development is not all about adding fancy new features, it is also about identifying existing problems. Companies do not offer unlimited support on outdated products as they want to concetrate on improving the most recent browser.
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 5 was the first browser I every used back in 1999. Support continued for this version up until 2004 when Microsoft switched all support over to it’s newest browser, Internet Explorer 6. So, there are still people using a browser that has not had any security updated since 2004 – and they could be doing their internet banking online whilst giving away all of their details.
This is an extreme example, but general internet users are unaware of the security implications of not using the most up to date version of a browser, and are not aware that if they are using an old browser version, it may no longer be supported by the manufacturer and so could be at risk while surfing the internet.
The easiest way to make sure you are doing your utmost to stay secure online is make sure that you are using the most up to date version of your browser of choice.