Just like most other website owners, you want your website to attract customers. But how can you see who visits your website? And how can you use this knowledge to increase the website traffic over time? Fortunately, there are many tools that can help you. Let’s start with the right one for your website without becoming a data expert!
What is website traffic?
The term website traffic refers to the number of internet users who visit their website. Data traffic can arrive from far-reaching sources, such as directly in your website address, via other websites that link to your website, organic data traffic (i.e. you come from the search results from the search results), data traffic (persons who click on your online ads) via your social media and other channels. The total number of these users who combine their website is what we call website traffic.
How to check how many people enter a website
There are online tools with which you can understand your website data traffic. These tools offer you many different metrics, but we will receive the most important in relation to the website data traffic.
Tools to persecute website visits
Numerous tools can help you track your website. We will look at some well -known tools that give you the knowledge you need.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the tool for many website owners when it comes to gaining insights into their target group and website performance. What is great about the analysis is that you can use it free of charge and receive a lot of detailed findings for you. All metrics mentioned above can be found in the analysis and offer you the opportunity to get into the visitor behavior and side performance. You can mark important events and track whether people carry out the actions they want.
The homepage provides an overview of data that analytics thinks is relevant for you based on your behavior in the tool. Some reports provide the metrics mentioned and much more to understand their audience. Explain it enables you to create your own “reports” in order to go into a specific question or element that you want a deeper understanding. If you have carried out Google ads, Analytics also gives insights into your ads and which actions that you should take there.
You have to connect analyzes to your website, but luckily there are tools that will help you. Google also explains how that is in its right Guide for beginnersThis also gives you more information about this tool. A disadvantage of analysis, if you can call it that, is that all information that is delivered there can be overwhelming for some. You expect you to find your way and find out which data is relevant for your website. This makes it difficult to concentrate on the right things and not to lose yourself in the forest.
Google search console
Another tool that Google provided free of charge is the Google Search Console. Although there are some overlaps with analyzes, this tool focuses more on showing its visibility in different parts of the Google ecosystem. Similar to Semrush, it is very helpful if you work on the performance of your pages and increase the website traffic. If the increase in organic traffic on your website is a large part of your marketing strategy, add this tool to your favorite.
We have a beginner guide to the search console that goes into the details and explains how an account is set up.
I wanted to mention this tool because it can help you increase your website traffic if you are used correctly. However, if you are mainly looking for a tool that gives you insights into your current website data traffic, I would recommend investing your time in another tool (Fe Analytics). Search console It’s great to find out which parts of your website you should work. However, if you want to take a step back and first want to familiarize yourself with your website statistics, this may be for a later time.
Semrush
Semrush is another online tool that shows you how many people visit your website. This platform is used by many people who work on the visibility of their website. To give an idea, you can use SEMRUSH to get data about your website. However, you can also carry out keyword searches and compare them with competitors.
As with the analysis, it provides a lot of information. However, it depends on your subscription how you can use this tool extensively. There is a free version with which you get the data you need when you start. It offers a site audit (from 100 pages), a position tracking (for 10 keywords), personal recommendations and traffic data such as visits, conversion and bounce rate.
If you want to try Semrush, simply create a free account and fill out your website on which the tool asks for your main domain. This immediately gives you knowledge. You will find that not all data is available and that access to some more detailed statistics requires an upgrade. But especially if you want to work on your SEO, Semrush gives you a lot of relevant information.
Metrics in the website traffic
Each tool has different data, but there are some relevant metrics that you can find in most of them. I will explain some of you to help you find out who visits your website and what you do on your pages.
Number of users
First there is the number of users. The number of entire users indicates how many people have visited their website or a certain page in the selected period. In addition to the total number, you may see the following metrics: active users, new users and/or returning users.
Active users are the number of people who deal with their side in this date area. Then there is the difference between new users (the number of people who are visitor to your website for the first time) and returning users (the number of people who have previously visited their website).
Number of sessions
When a user opens your website, start a new session. All interactions that take place during the time you spend on your website are part of this one session. There is no limitation of how long a session can take, but it usually ends after 30 minutes of inactivity. If the user interacts with the website after this time or comes back at a later date, this is considered another session.
Page view
When you come across the metric page views, you will be given how often a page is loaded in a browser or recharged. Every time a user visits a page, it is referred to as one page – even if he updates the page or navigates back several times. This metric helps to measure how often your content is displayed, regardless of how many unique users are visited.
Source/medium
Source/medium indicates how users arrive on their website. The source is the specific origin of your data traffic (e.g. Google, facebook.com), while medium describes the general category of this source (e.g. Organic, CPC, transfer). Together they give them insights into what channels drive the most and which could do better.
Commitment and events
The engagement rate is the percentage of meetings that were actively involved, i.e. the users spent at least 10 seconds on the website, had a conversion event or considered two or more pages. It helps to measure how meaningful or valuable the interaction of a user is.
Events, on the other hand, pursue certain user actions – such as clicks, downloads, video games or forms – detailed insights into the interaction with their content. Metrics related to commitment and events give you an idea of whether people deal with their sides and take the measures that they should take.
Other interesting metrics
These metrics offer you a lot of information about your website traffic, but most tools naturally also offer you other interesting metrics. You can also look at the bounce rate that tells you the percentage of the user percentage, who only go one side after viewing. The average meeting time shows you how much time users spend on your website. Data traffic according to device gives an overview of how many of your users visit your website via desktop, mobile and/or tablet. Finally, top sites indicate which pages get most visits.
Why should you know who visits your website
As I have addressed in the previous paragraphs, data on your website traffic gives you an insight into the behavior of your website visitors. If you understand who visits your website and how to interact with it, you can make more informed decisions about your website. It’s not just about counting clicks or visitors. It is about uncovering trends, identifying growth opportunities and optimizing the user experience in order to increase conversions, commitment or other goals.
Are you visible on the right channels?
If you know where your visitors come from, be it organic search, social media, direct traffic, recommendations or paid advertisements, you can measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. For example, if you invest strongly in social media campaigns, but see little traffic from these platforms, this could mean that it is time to re -evaluate your social strategy. On the other hand, a high traffic from a certain channel can indicate a strong presence on which you can build up. With this insight you can provide your time and your resources more strategy.
Pages that run (or not)
Website data show how people interact with their pages, which means that they indicate what their top performing sites are and which sides have to improve. Your top performance pages can show a high commitment, the conversions or the time on site, which indicates content that is well received by the visitors. Pages that are below average can show you where users cancel or lose interest. This insight is invaluable to determine which content updated, restructured or even retired to improve your overall performance of the website.
Website performance over time
By pursuing your traffic trends for days, weeks or months, you can evaluate the health of your online presence. Do you see growth? Seasonal spikes? Or suddenly the traffic on your website? These patterns help you to understand what works, what does not work and how external factors could affect you. There is also a basis for measuring the success of all changes to your website or other marketing activities.
Understand your audience
If you look at the data you will find out who is visiting your website, you will receive a deeper understanding of your audience and the rejection of your website. This does not mean that you should be obsessed with these numbers every day, but a monthly rating to go through everything helps you to make well -founded decisions. Decisions that improve your (online) presence and attract more people to your website.
These tools are just the tip of the iceberg, but they are a good starting point if you want to watch your website visits over time. So what should you use? If you are looking for a tool that offers you detailed insights into your website data traffic (and thus the audience), I recommend that you first set up Google Analytics. It is the tool that focuses on the persecution of the website traffic and contains the largest selection of data.
Close
In this blog post we discussed how important it is to get insights into your website traffic. This can help you to understand your audience and your behavior and to improve you to improve your website. There are many tools, but those mentioned above are a good starting point. So choose one and a handle on your website traffic!
Read more: How do you measure the success of your content -seo strategy? »
