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Tools and Tips for Monitoring Your Web Site

By Jim Odom

If you have a web site, one of the most important questions you can ask is, "How much traffic am I getting?" No matter the purpose you had for starting a web site, this is generally a question that would interest you. Even if the purpose of your site or Blog is just to inform and entertain your audience, knowing how many are in the audience ought to at least pique your interest. In this post, I will mention a few helpful gadgets, sites, and tools that I have found interesting and helpful.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is an analytical solution that gives you insights into your site traffic and how effective your marketing has been. The Google analytics dashboard provides easy to use features that let you see and analyze your web site's traffic. With Google Analytics, you're more informed of the source of your traffic and the keywords that brought that traffic to your web site. Even if you're not marketing a product, Google Analytics can just be a fun tool to use to see who is visiting your site.

Use of Google Analytics is free and signing up for it is easy. The only problem you may encounter is adding the tracking code to your site. In order to track every page on your site, you will need to add the code to every page. That is very easy if you use something like a server side include that automatically appears on all your site's pages. You can just add the tracking code to the "include" and it appears on all your pages. When you sign up for Google Analytics, the code is generated by Google for you to add to your site. Add the code, then log in to your dashboard and see all kinds of facts about your traffic; how many, from which region, which browser they use, what keyword brought them to your site, Their screen resolution, the type browser they use, and even what color socks they are wearing are all answered in the Google Analytics dashboard. Well, all except the sock color, I just threw that in to see if you were paying attention.
To sign up, visit: http://www.google.com/analytics/

Google Toolbar

Another Google product that is very helpful is a Google Toolbar. (Google is going to take over the world). The Google Toolbar has several features including a search field built right in so you do not have to visit www.google.com to begin your search. There are lots of other cool features I won't get into, but one feature of the Google Toolbar that I use a lot is the page rank indicator. Google assigns a page rank from one to ten of how important Google feels a web page is. Of course Google.com gets a page rank of 10. Any new site will start out at a page rank of 0 and usually not move up for several weeks until Google has indexed the site and believes it has relevant content.

Along with the page rank indicator is a drop down arrow that shows all the back links to the page you are viewing that Google has indexed. You can also get this information by typing "link:http://www.mydomain.com/" into a Google search box. (replace "mydomain" with your domain name, of course). The drop down arrow beside the page rank indicator just makes it faster to look at the backward links to a page. You can even use this to look at links to your competitor's page. You may see a directory or other site you could contact about getting your site linked to. There are lots of other buttons and tools on a Google Toolbar, but I will leave you to do a little exploring.
To get the Google Tool bar: http://www.google.com/toolbar/ff/index.html

Site Meter

Another useful tool I found was a traffic counter. I'm sure there are lots of fine products out there that track the traffic coming to your site. One I like is site meter. It is very unobtrusive on your site even if you use the free version. I have not used the paid version so I can't really comment on the value you get for using site meter in the paid version.

With site meter, you get about the same information as you get from Google Analytics but in real time. Quite frankly, I like the cool logo added to your page when you add the tracking code. It's not nearly as conspicuous as traffic counters I see on some web pages displaying a running total of visitors. Visitors to your site can click the logo and see how many visitors and page views you get on your site. Of course this can be a positive or a negative depending on whether you are pleased with the number of visitors to your site.
To get site meter, visit: http://www.sitemeter.com/

Mike's Search Engine Rankings

I use this site quite a lot. The feature I like is the ability to compare how your site ranks for certain keywords across multiple search engines. You simply type your domain name into one field, then type the keyword in which you have an interest in another field. Hit the enter key, and you get results on how your site ranks for the entered keyword on 8 different search engines. I realize there are programs like Web CEO that will do this for even multiple keywords. I like the simplicity of accessing online and not have to take a lot of time for a program to initialize. I also like the fact that it is free to use.

The site that has this page rank tool, is called Mike's Marketing Tools. Mike offers several advertisements on the site for all sorts of SEO tools and web hosting. I have not used any of the products advertised on the site. I'm sure Mike won't be happy about hearing that in case he Google's his own site and finds this post. You may find some tool or service there that you like and maybe if you do, I will have done my part to help Mike, since his ranking tool has been so beneficial to me.
You can find the free page ranking tool at: http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/ranking-reports/

I hope you find at least one of the tools mentioned in this post helpful.

I welcome comments about other tools or gadgets you have found useful for your web site.

Contributor's Note

Just as a principle of full disclosure: I have no financial interest in any of the products or web sites mentioned. I don't receive ad revenue nor do I do affiliate marketing for any site mentioned. Use your own judgment as to the suitability of any products you may choose to use off any of these sites. I have only used the free versions and have no advise one way or the other as to how the premium or paid versions work

One of the most disappointng discoveries I ever made was that the information I was getting for my Costa Classified Ads site was a long way from reality.

Alexa showed me a ranking of 987,000
Google Analytics showed 1200 visitors a day

As you can imagine, although the site is a free advertising site, I did wonder why there were no clicks on any of the Adwords ads. I used different visitor counters and site analysis products and none of them gave different results.

I finally, in desperation, started to isolate functions within the web site to try to see what these visitors were doing. Eventually I found out that the multiple automated functions that used Cron jobs were the 'visitors'. Since I found alternatives to the Cron jobs my visitor rate has fallen to a more realistic 30 a day amd my Alexa rank is down to 1,377,851.

Yes, it's good to do a little digging into source of visitors. You sometimes find that a disproportionate number of visitors may be coming from a specific geographic region as well. At least some of these tools can reveal that to you.

Thanks for commenting, Arthur

I have Google Analytics. I love it. You know though... I did some research on Alexa rankings -- It only gives figures for Alexa users (You have to have their tool bar.) Most people don't even realize this thing even exists and don't have Alexa toolbars and Alexa widgets on their sites (like me). So just how valid is Alexa as a ranking system anyway? Lots of people make a fuss over it.

I wasn't aware of that about Alexa. I would think that not a lot of people have the Alexa Toolbar. You can't have them all. My goodness, there is Yahoo, Alexa, Aol, and tons of custom Toolbars. I like Google's for all the add-on's they offer.

Have you tried Mike's ranking site? Sometimes you can be a little apprehensive about visiting third party sites, but I have found it quite useful with not any annoying pop-up ads.

I use it quite frequently. It's good to check your own site, but I find it helpful to see where other sites are getting their quality back links. Sometimes I find a directory that I then sign up for

One of the tools I enjoy most is the little map on the sidebar of my blog showing where in the whole world my visitors are coming from. By now the US portion of the map is almost solid red, with a sprinkling of visitors showing from Europe and Asia, and the very tip of Africa, but all of South America is untouched.

Maybe you could share with us where that "widget" came from. Thanks for commenting

My Feedjit widget is on the bottom of my left sidebar on my blog and if you go there and click on "Click to Get" it will give you the code to use for yourself. Here is a link to my jalapeno pepper post so you can see my "veggie" and then scroll all the way to the bottom to find the map.

Hah, then your location will show up as a red dot on my map. Too kewl. I hope it doesn't violate Qondio regulations to link to an individual post here. I shouldn't think so as it is context related. But I am clueless about some of this stuff.

Oh, don't worry about Qondio...I am asking for input like this. I think it helps everyone

If you have a Word Press site there is a plug-in called "Visitor Maps - Whos Online" that will tell you who is visiting your site from where. You can set many options through the admin part of the plugin (such as not tracking bots). You can get the plugin here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/visitor-maps/.

Thanks for the input. I don't use Word Press, but I'm sure this will help someone reading this

Thank you for sharing this great information, Jim. The added comment discussions also help all of us monitor our websites.
Best wishes.
Frederick

I expected and wanted other contributions. Everyone does not use the same tools and techniques and we call all learn a few new tricks. After all, we're not old dogs

Another good way to check your backlinks to your pages is by using Yahoo Site Explorer. Just enter your domain name in the box at the top and it will show you how many links are pointing to your site. There is a drop-down to the right where you need to select "except from this domain" so you get a real count of external links other than your own site.

Also, another alternative to Google Analytics is "Crazy Egg". I do believe they have a free option, but of course, the paid one gives you much more information.

Thanks for sharing. I have not used either, but I will try them out

I went to check out the blog for the site mentioned in your first picture. I think many people use a system like the one pictured on the blog kaushik.net picture

Love it!!!!!!!!!!!! This way has always worked better that all the others combined for me. I'm not sure why I didn't mention it in the article here

Thanks so much for your contribution. I hope all will check out this link

I am working on being #1 out of the 1,030,000 results on Google for "nonsensical comments"*

There are actually only 56,900, so you don't have as far as you thought to move up. I would add, "nonsensical comments" as a text link to every comment you make so you will get a lot of back links.

Just FYI, I looked up "nonsensical comments" in the dictionary and there was a picture of you at your keyboard to describe what the phrase meant.

I'm glad to see you are proud of it and wear the title as a badge of honor. I think I made mention in that note that we were kindred spirits.

I did the search without the quotes. I added the quotes in the comment to set it apart from the rest of the text.

Actually, links in comments are generally no follow links and therefore useless as back links.

I did find that if I did a search for "Why you should be careful about nonsensical comments" with the quotes there are no matches so of course that will be the title of my next Intel.

I should have known that you would not have been mistaken about something as serious as that.

I llok forward to the intel. Is there any way I can pre-bookmark it?

Thanks for this I'm trying out Site Meter as a result. Useful info always appreciated.

It's free...of course you can't use every free gadjet you run across, but I like it

I just finished the Intel and it is in the queue. Once "Books signed by the author" which is currently being screened is published and "Free Rock and Gem Show" which is my next Intel is published "Why you should be careful about nonsensical comments" will be in the screening process where you can bookmark and rate it. I think you will be delightfully impressed with how it came out.

I'm only going to give it three and a half stars no matter how much I like it

Thanks for all the info supplied in your post. Where is the best place to add these codes in your website?

It really doesn't matter much. The line of code is invisible to the viewer of the page. If you are lucky enough to have a server side include menu or a page that appears on ALL your web pages, I would add it to that page. That way every page of your site can be tracked. Otherwise, all the pages have to have the code copied and pasted into them. Only the pages that have the tracking code will be analyzed if you choose to add it to only a few of the pages.

I stand corrected, There are three results for "Why you should be careful about nonsensical comments"

and am #1 for "nonsensical comments" with or without the quotes.

You are correct! I even verified your study. It's amazing how highly ranked Qondio posts really get. I have done searches for key words in article I have posted and seen similar results.

But really, "nonsensical comments"; isn't that a little bit like being #1 for a search for "Engelbert Humperdinck" ...Now you can add this to your list of nonsensical comments.

Consider first the title of this Intel. Next scroll up and look at my post above on Apr 28, 2010 16:13

If you were teaching people how to get top search engine placement for Free wouldn't you add this to your portfolio? I did what I said I was going to do and it is documented here.

I would definitely add it to my portfolio. Now I'm going to throw out a challenge:

Let's see if you can get #1 placement for "Engelbert Humperdinck"

sandyspider May 5, 2010 00:21

Great conversation going here! The comments should have been used as an article for conversation week.

Back to business. You can also check what links are pointing to a site using Google Search. Just type in links: and the URL in the search bar.

You can use this to see who is linking not just to websites, but blogs, images, discussions etc.

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In response to your reply, I prefer not to clutter up my browser with a lot of tool bars and do it selectively.

Good point...you can also see these back links by using the Google tool bar with "Page Rank" installed. The down arrow beside the page rank rating gives you a clickable link to access all your back links.

Can you tell me where to add my Analytics code to get my Qondio account watched by it. I have my other accounts from Bukisa, Seekyt, and Zazzle set up with Analytics but I don't see any info for my Qondio account except for Adsense reports. Thanks

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