Website Stats - - - What do they all mean?

[AroundTheWorld]

Okay - - - another famous - I - Know - Nothing - About - The - Web question.

MJ's success getting Page Rank up to 3 peaked my curiosity. I have a little ol homestead / homeschool blog. (One that, by the way, has been totally neglected all summer.) I went and looked it up and found the page rank. To my surprise, it is a 3!

On to my point:

When I look up my stats - I see all kinds of numbers that just don't mean a thing to me.

For instance: I see #of requests and # of pages.

Uh - - what does this mean? It is my understanding that each of these numbers is rather "useless" as it doesn't really give you an actual count of unique users... is that right?

If so - is there a better way to find out how many unique users you are getting? And, what are some benchmark targets for stats anyway?

 

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[John]

First off, many different stats programs count your traffic differently. If you want a true apples to apples comparison it's best to use the same program to measure each site. My favorite is Google Analytics. It's free to use, works great, and gives you more info than you could ever want to know: Google Analytics .

Here are some definitions for you. Note that certain people or stat programs may use different definitions for these terms, so when in doubt it's always best to verify what program they're using or what their exact definition of the term is:

hits - number of files requested, including both image and html files. For example, if one visitor views one page and that page has 20 images in it, the single pageview will generate 21 "hits" (20 images plus the 1 html page that uses them.) This is generally a worthless metric. Many people misuse the term "hits" when they really mean visits or pageviews.

pageviews - number of pages viewed. If you visit this site once in the morning and click around to 5 different pages, then leave, then visit again in the afternoon and click around to 7 different pages, you've generated 12 pageviews.


visits (also known as "sessions") - a single session by a single user. If you visit this site once in the morning and click around to 5 different pages, then leave, then visit again in the afternoon and click around to 7 different pages, you've generated two "visits." Different stats programs use different amounts of away time to determine whether a visit is still the same visit or a new visit. For example, one program might require that the visitor stay away for 1 hour before they count new activity from the same person as a separate visit, other programs might only require 10 minutes away before counting a new visit from the same person. Obviously the program with the shorter away time requirement will report higher visitor numbers than the one with a longer requirement.

Unique visits (or Absolute unique visitors, or "uniques") - The number of unique people who have visited a site during a specified timeframe. Subsequent visits by the same person during the same timeframe are not counted. The most common timeframes of interest are "daily unique visitors" and "monthly unique visitors." As an example, if I visit a website 20 times in one month, I've generated one unique visit for the month. If I visit a website 20 times in one month and someone else visits the website 43 times during that month we've generated 2 monthly unique visits for the site. Monthly uniques are one of the main metrics that advertisers like to look at to see how many unique people they can reach by advertising on a site. Most advertisers would rather put an ad in front of 100 unique people one time each than in front of 10 unique people 10 times each.

These are the major basic metrics. There are also many other useful metrics that can be derived from these, such as average pageviews per visitor, etc.

I realize that this is a confusing topic, especially at first when you're trying to get a grasp of the terminology. I work with this stuff every day, and could happily go on about it all day. If you have any more questions or need anything clarified please ask. I'd love an excuse to continue rattling on.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

The most important metrics to be concerned with are:

• Unique visitors - How many unique people visit (can be some bots)
• Page Views - How many times a page is requested.
• Visitors - How many visits aggregate
• Time Spent (Stickiness) - usually measured in minutes. (3.3 mins)

These will dictate how valuable your site is for 1) Advertising and 2) Selling it. They also make for good marketing tools "We get 10,000 visitors daily!".

*Hits* on the other hand, is used incorrectly as a measurement of visitors. Hits is how many requests your server is handling ... every page request might carry 10 hits. So when a website says "We get 20,000,000 hits a day!" it's really a BS metric.

If you have 4,000,000 page views monthly-- you can adopt a CPM ad model and start selling ad space. If you sell those views at $10 CPM, you'd be making $40K/mo just by leveraging the page views. (CPM = Cost Per Thousand Impressions)

Now if you have a website that profits on services (or leads) you'd earn double income -- a CPM model + the lead/service revenue ... sound familiar? This is how a web company can earn $100K, $200K+ every single month.

~ MJ

PS: Focus on driving traffic and providing good content and the PageRank metric will follow.

 

[Sid23]

So piggy-backing on ATW's question (I am another "know nothing about the web"), how hard is it to generate, say, $5,000/mo from an internet site?

I know there is probably not a straight-forward answer to the question, but I'm trying to get "perspective" on this business model. Are there thousands and thousands of people making $5k a month on the internet, or is $5k mean you are extremely successful with your internet biz and only some people reach that point?

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

So piggy-backing on ATW's question (I am another "know nothing about the web"), how hard is it to generate, say, $5,000/mo from an internet site?

I know there is probably not a straight-forward answer to the question, but I'm trying to get "perspective" on this business model. Are there thousands and thousands of people making $5k a month on the internet, or is $5k mean you are extremely successful with your internet biz and only some people reach that point?

I can only speak for myself. If I duplicated what I did before, in a different industry, it wouldn't take me long to get up to $5K/mo. Believe me, those thoughts nag at me daily and I have to refocus and remind myself that I have a book to write.

Now there are bloggers, Ebookers, and affiliate arbitragers that make $5K/mo or more, but personally, I don't like that space because it is crowded. If you want to make really big money, don't follow what the crowds are doing -- because if it worked, the crowd would be rich.

For me, this "write a book and try to sell it" is a new marketspace for me and I am learning. My yearnings to do what I did before, in a different space, always beckons.

 

[Sid23]

Thanks MJ!

Anyone else involved in ebiz care to comment?

 

[AroundTheWorld]

So piggy-backing on ATW's question (I am another "know nothing about the web"), how hard is it to generate, say, $5,000/mo from an internet site?

OK - clearly I am not a web person, but I do have a few "generic" comments about this.

#1) MJ has a great thread on this . . . the entrepreneurial premise thread. Create value and the money will follow - not the other way around.

#2) As MJ mentioned earlier - I do believe it can be done, but very, very tough to do with a blog. You can't go with the crowd. Find a niche market- create value for that niche market and I do believe that that kind of money can be made.

Please swallow with a VERY LARGE TUB of Salt.

 

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[Sid23]

#1) MJ has a great thread on this . . . the entrepreneurial premise thread. Create value and the money will follow - not the other way around.

#2) As MJ mentioned earlier - I do believe it can be done, but very, very tough to do with a blog. You can't go with the crowd. Find a niche market- create value for that niche market and I do believe that that kind of money can be made.

Thanks for the comments ATW and I completely agree!

I don't think I'm asking my question clearly. And maybe you guys are right, there is no way to really answer this.

As an example, I know "about" how easy it is for a newbie to make $100/mo in passive income in real estate. You find a SFH under value and rent it out and come out $100 ahead. In my opinion, anyone with a basic level of intelligence should be able to put together 1 of these deals in a one year time frame.

Taking that up to $5k a month (and keeping it there), however, requires a lot more real estate knowledge and many other things. You then either own 100 SFH's or more likely, have moved up into commercial real estate and are involved in bigger deals.

Knowing the above gives me a little bit of "perspective" on the real estate business. It allows me to understand that doing 1 small deal is realistic to shoot for in a year, but also tells me that making $5k a month in real estate may be done in a year, but realistically might take more like 2-3 years.

I guess that's what I'm looking to learn about an ebiz, but completely understand that its impossible to gauge perhaps.

Thanks all.

 

[mtnman]

OK - clearly I am not a web person, but I do have a few "generic" comments about this.

#1) MJ has a great thread on this . . . the entrepreneurial premise thread. Create value and the money will follow - not the other way around.

#2) As MJ mentioned earlier - I do believe it can be done, but very, very tough to do with a blog. You can't go with the crowd. Find a niche market- create value for that niche market and I do believe that that kind of money can be made.

Please swallow with a VERY LARGE TUB of Salt.

(not calling you out ATW, just my way of explaining)

I disagree with some of your point. Your tact could be different, but that should not be confused with a new and emerging market.

This is the internet! There's room for "you" too!

Case in point - - go where money is already being spent. There is a myth (that I used to buy into) that you have to find some revolutionary "thing", service, or market in order to pull down some serious coin and satisfy a myriad of people.

But that's kicker... the word satisfy. I learned the hard way (and mostly from MJ's EP thread, but it took a couple wrong doings to pierce the skull in full) that most often, the naysayers go into a market where money is being spent without "doing it better."

These are the people that say, "oh, you have to find something that's untapped or revolutionary."

Additionally, doing it better can even be brushed aside with "a new approach" or twist to liven things up.

I'm not saying new and emerging markets aren't great, but they are few and far between, and most go bust trying to get out of the gate. Unless your expertise (or your team's expertise) lies in a given arena, avoiding becomming a statistic is the fastest way to millions in this manner.

IMO, or course. I'll confirm that once my destination has been reached.

 

[mtnman]

Oh, and about the 5k/mo from an internet site.... Cake walk if you do the work. You just have to get familiar with the processes and get in touch with your market/niche.

It's just like rehabbing (for your RE guys/gals), you have to get off the couch, find deals, make offers, be patient, put your work clothes on, tear down some drywall, fix septic tanks, deal with the hassles, whatever.

Just as RE is a whole world out there, so is ebiz. But the leverage, OMG!

It's getting from 5k/mo to 100k/mo that takes some doing. But if you can do one, you CAN do the other. But just as others have referenced with RE, this takes some skill and planning. But most of all, MORE DO! I will say that experience would go a long way when scaling up.

 

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[psynapse]

ATW, if you want to understand more about web analytics, I *highly* recommend the book: Web Analytics, by Avinash Kaushik.

The world of web analytics is amazing. It really revolutionizes commerce. Never before have business owners been able to easily track the number of visits into their retail store, record what each customer looks at, how long each customer looks at it, and how many items the customer looked at before they left the store (with or without purchasing something). Imagine how a retail outfit such as the Gap or Victoria's Secret may adjust their store layout if they were able to track this ..

As you can imagine, the power to convert the data into valuable ROI is tremendous. One key thing though, is now with all this tracking, there are still two critical elements;
1. the qualitative "why"
(why page views are increasing/decreasing, why a user left at a particular page, why they came to the site, etc)
2. how to turn the data into actionable points that will produce a positive ROI.
(because ultimately, we're looking to create some value...)

If the book is too heavy-handed for you, he also has a blog for quick-reading.

 

[AroundTheWorld]

(not calling you out ATW, just my way of explaining)

I disagree with some of your point. Your tact could be different, but that should not be confused with a new and emerging market.

I have been reading 'The Long Tail.' It is about how the niche market is (already has been) emerging as a market force. The internet is eliminating the bottlenecks and barriers and allowing people to find the things they are truely interested in - rather than just what the mass media / mainstream culture makes available.

More and more, "everything" is available to "everyone."