Statistics are uncommonly dry things, but most site owners are able to get involved with them. Your click-through rate or time on page rates seem just numbers until you think about how many customers they represent. Then, it’s easy to get a little excited.
Web logs are different. Although they represent a source for your site’s statistics, all those but the most technically-minded tend to avoid them. Even if you get into the habit of reviewing statistics, it’s possible that you’re missing out on much of the information your web logs have to tell you. It’s important for the health of your site that you learn.
Any site owner who regularly analyses the statistics provided by their web logs is ahead of the game. These stats offer an understanding of your site users and what those users think about your site. This can give you an insight into what Google is thinking about your site, and offer you clues for how your search engine optimization campaign should progress.
What are web logs?
Web logs shouldn’t be confused with blogs, although the latter name does come from the same words. Also known as server logs, web server logs or just log files, they are the logs of information from your server about the people who visit your site. As you might guess, this information can come in handy when you’re trying to fine-tune your website optimization.
Your web logs can show you the navigation paths taken by different users, the pages that are most viewed, and the pages that represent exits from your site. All of these are valuable points of information for your SEO.
Applying data to an SEO campaign
Knowing what people are doing on your site is the first step to controlling their behaviour. Once you know where people are coming from, what they’re doing and where they are going, you know that either your plans are working, or that you need to change tactics.
If you do need to change tactics, knowing which pages are attracting or repelling users is the first step to correcting the issue. Study these pages for hints on what your users do and don’t like.
A note of warning
It can be easy to get a little too interested in your site’s statistics, and this is unhelpful. Analysing web logs properly could easily be a full-time job. It’s usually helpful to track down a log analysis tool to help you decipher what the raw numbers mean for your business. Your SEO company should also be able to help you lay out a plan for interpreting your statistics, and you can discuss this with us at SEO Consult.
That said, it is important for every site owner to be aware of the information contained in their web logs. Being able to understand the raw data is quite a technical issue, but not beyond the reach of most site owners. As some analytics tools can be a little confusing in terms of results, it’s important to be able to look at the source if you need to.