Are you able to figure when you see your web traffic statistics? Let's say that you have had 10 visitors and 600 hits? Yes, maybe your website traffic can be very complicated if you don’t know what all the terms mean. after you understand the concept, your stats will be much easier to read.

First of all, you will need to have a good counter installed on your website. Some web hosts come with a web counter pre-installed, but you might want to find a new one. Most counters are quite easy to install, using copy and paste HTML style. While a host-based stats system will provide you with all your stats right there on your web site, you will need to visit the website of an outside counter. There, you can set up all for each website or blog that you operate and monitor your stats.

Now that you have a good statistic counter, you might want to know what all those graphics and numbers mean. The best way to do this is to first find out the terminology used. Then you can start looking at the numbers.

Website Hits. These are the number of objects that have been loaded onto a browser. This means that if you have ten objects on your page, plus the HTML file, you will register 22 hits every time someone looks at that page. An object can be anything from a picture or graphic to a widget or text box. Most web pages have several objects, some have thousands! So, hits are not the indication of how many people actually visited your website.

Website Visitors. A visitor is someone who looks at your site and receives a cookie to mark them. That way you will know if they are a return visitor (someone coming back to take a second look) or a unique visitor. browsers that don’t allow cookies will register as a unique visitor each time the person returns to your page.

Page Visits. These are how many times people have arrived at your site. They may be visits from a returning visitors or unique ones. Therefore, the visits number can be much higher than your visitors, specially if you have blog that is often updated.

Page Views. Page views differ from hits in that they only register the page as a whole. So if someone looks through your home page which has 20 objects, it would only appear as one page view, whereas it would show 20 hits every time someone looks at your web page.

There are  more terms that are useful to know, if your stat counter gives them to you.

Referral Site: This will tell you know how people are finding your website.If they are clicking through from a forum that you posted on or a search engine. It is good to see if your back links are working.

Main Entry Page: Your stat counter may show you what pages your visitors arrived on. Although we usually think of the home page as the entry page, it is not always so. Many times, when an interior page is indexed on a search engine, a relevant search will turn up only that page and send visitors directly to  article or catalog page. Knowing where people are coming to your website allows you to adjust the pages.

Exit Page: This is the page people are leaving your website from. Are they running for the hills when they go to your sales page? Maybe you might need to tweak it. Changing the pages that people usually click away from is a good way to keep your visitors longer.

Now that you know the basics of your web traffic, it will be easier to fix your website. Knowing when and where visitors are entering and exiting will help you make your site more efficient and useful, and in the long run, earn more money.

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