Web statistics are a lot more important to a fledgling Internet business than you might imagine. They don’t just tell you how much traffic it gets, but are detailed enough to help you improve your website too.

For example, I use a statistics program called ‘AWStats’, provided by my server host, which show me daily visits, unique visitor count, how many times they visit, have they bookmarked my site, and that just for starters.

Most decent statistics programs will charge you. However, google analytics is a website statistics service, well regarded by many webmasters, and it’s free to advertisers, publishers and site owners!

As google says, ‘analytics helps you identify areas for improvement on your site so you can turn more clicks into customers’. All you need to do is to sign up for a google account. Here are some of the features it provides,

• Visits, pages/visit, average time on site, new visits
• How people are finding your site
• How visitors navigate through your website
• Graphing tools to help you spot trends
• Detailed and summary reports
• Who is buying your products
• Your sales page conversion rate from browsers to buyers
• Tips to help you analyse the statistics

Plus a lot more that I haven’t mentioned. Google also provides a guided tour video to help you understand what statistics you can collect and how you can use them to your advantage.