Programs for analyzing visitor statistics. Tools for analyzing attendance: counters

Good afternoon, dear readers! I've been writing a lot lately about how you can get search traffic to your blog. My blog posts talked about this, a special event was created and for this reason practical case. But in order to get concrete positive results in promotion, you need to take a very important action in the entire process. And today we will talk about how to find out traffic on a website, You will receive complete practical guide by analyzing resource traffic statistics. I have divided this material into two parts and today the first one awaits you.

Services for analyzing website traffic

Any process, task, various human activities can always be assessed using intermediate data. This data uses information from various parameters, showing the status of completion and success of the case at the current moment. Search engine promotion of a blog is no exception - to evaluate it, it is also necessary to analyze various characteristics his attendance.

There is a special section of search marketing for this. With the help of a set of measures, you can always obtain all kinds of data at any time and conduct an in-depth analysis of it. In my work, I use various services as tools for collecting and identifying this information.

First of all, I'm talking about a set of tools and reports Google Analytics. Today, this is the most modern and advanced service for collecting and assessing all kinds of website parameters. It is slightly inferior in functionality, but has a friendlier and clearer user interface - analytical service Yandex Metrica. With the help of these particular packages, I will show you the most important traffic parameters that you need to know when promoting your site.

Website traffic statistics indicators

So, in order to correctly assess the traffic to your site, you need to periodically look and analyze a number of metrics and measurements. To do this, we must collect data on the parameters we need. Next you will see a list of them, where the first word in the list indicates the name of the metric in Google Analytics, and in brackets - in Yandex Metrica:

• visits (visits);
• page views (views);
• average duration of visit (time on site);
• unique visitors(s);
• average viewing depth (viewing depth);
• bounce rate (bounces);
• new visits (new).

In Google Analytics, this data can be seen in the Overview report from the Audience submenu. They are located in special cells (called iscographs), where in addition to numbers, graphs of changes in these metrics are also shown. Typically the numbers are calculated for these measurements for the current month. To obtain information for a different period of time, you need to use the date range selector. In I described in detail how to use it. For example, this is what a report with data from my SEO blog looks like based on these metrics for September:

In Yandex Metrica, this data can be seen in the “summary” report in the “Attendance” menu section. It looks different, in the form of a regular table with data. Here is my report for the same period of time (by the way, you can compare the data and see a small error in the measurements - the numbers are slightly different for these analytics services):

Now let's look at each metric separately. I will show what this data can provide so that you can evaluate and analyze the traffic to your web resource. Let's first look at the most popular measurement - visits.

Visits

This indicator indicates the total number of visitors who were on the analyzed web resource over a certain period of time. This includes all visits, both new and views of the site more than once (when the person returned on the same day). Moreover, it is important to understand that the total number of new and returning visitors is not equal to the total number of visitors. Because a visitor who visited your site once, left it, and then returned again is considered by the web analytics system to be both a new and a returning visitor.

What should you pay attention to here? Firstly, this indicator can show the growth in popularity of your resource. This makes it easier to assess whether traffic is growing or declining. Moreover, using different periods of time, it is possible to analyze these trends of rise and fall in the context of changes that were made on the site. That is, if you suddenly see that the number of visitors has dropped sharply in a certain period of time, comparing it with real dates, you can understand their reason. For example, the design of the site has changed or its overall structure has been rebuilt.

Secondly, using data from other reports, you can draw various conclusions about the work and benefits of a particular strategy that you have chosen to promote your site. For example, if you compare data on visits and their average duration, you can draw the following conclusions:

• if the difference in the data is not great, that is, the graphs compiled from them go smoothly, then we can say that no serious events occurred on the site - everything is as usual;
• if there is a difference, you need to understand its reason and draw appropriate conclusions (see figure):

For example, in this image you can see a large jump in the average length of time a visitor spends on the site and a small jump in the number of visits (compared to similar days). The thing is that on that day, September 13th, my new post was published. And unlike other posts (after all, this always happens on any blog), the average time for studying materials on my resource has jumped sharply. After a thorough analysis, I was able to draw the following conclusion - correctly placed inside the new post played a huge role in this leap internal links. Then, as can be seen from the graph, a year later my new article was read by the majority of regular readers subscribed to my site, all parameters returned to normal.

By the way, in order not to get confused in the abundance of data, especially over a long period, and to correctly evaluate the traffic results obtained, I recommend analyzing visits by day of the week. This way, you can easily understand whether there is a rise or fall, and when exactly it happened. Otherwise, sometimes these “humps” - graphs with data are an eyesore and do not always allow us to objectively evaluate visits.

Page views

This parameter gives the arithmetic average of the number of pages on our site that were viewed by all visitors in general. That is, this is the average number of pages of a web resource seen over a certain period of time.

Very important characteristic, which allows us to recognize our site from different positions. Here are some of them:

• how larger number pages viewed, the more popular our resource becomes. Readers don’t just read the new post that appears, they also study other materials. This is especially appreciated when;
• the higher this value, the better the navigation of our site works, the easier for a person find what he is looking for;
• a low score may indicate problems with text formatting (it is difficult to read, no pictures, etc.), or when a person simply does not receive Additional information based on the article you read (for example, if the text does not contain links to other materials on the topic).

This is an important parameter, so it should always be assessed carefully and over long periods of analysis. It allows you to instantly assess the popularity of our site and thus give impetus to investigations. After all, we are interested in our blog having more traffic. Here, for example, is my blog’s data on this parameter for the winter-summer of this year:

Average visit duration/h3>

A parameter very similar in its importance and its assessment to the previous metric. Often, even the dynamics of the graphs for them are similar. Its analysis is very simple - the more time a visitor spends on our pages, the more popular the site as a whole. Both from the point of view of regular regular readers and from the point of view of users search engines. By the way, if we talk about search engine promotion, the better the average visit duration, the better. This means its position in search engines is higher due to better CTR.

Unique visitors

This is the number of visitors who had at least one visit. This is also a necessary indicator that can allow us to evaluate our blog in terms of the significance of the resource in the eyes of search engine users and our regular readers. In general, its data is similar to the visit metric.

But I don't always use this data, because from a web analytics point of view, counting unique visitors not very logical. This is because no service can link together data received from several mobile or desktop devices. That is, it is very difficult to collect data and rank it correctly if a person visits our site either from his computer, or from a mobile phone or tablet. Of course, there are not many such devices that allow you to comfortably browse the Internet, but their number is growing every day.

Average viewing depth

At its core, this parameter is similar to page view data - the more pages of our site a person saw, the better for us. Both in terms of popularity and SEO. But there is an important difference. If the indicator of the number of pages viewed often speaks of , then this metric allows you to evaluate the usability of the site, its friendliness to the user. If our blog has a clear and logical structure, understandable widgets and sections with popular articles, and articles have thoughtful additional blocks with links to similar posts, then the viewing depth of course increases.

Bounce Rate

I think this is the most incomprehensible parameter of all that bloggers analyze for their sites. Many people don’t understand why Google Analytics has some data and Yandex Metrics has other data—diametrically opposed? Everything is very simple. I will try to explain in a popular way the principle of its calculation.

In Google Analytics, a bounce is defined as visiting one page of a website without performing any actions (transactions). For example, such actions could be downloading a file, watching a video, etc. Since most blogs have almost no such actionable elements, bounce rates are of great importance for them. Which usually leads many bloggers to a dead end, who understand by large numbers a very simple verdict - their blog is not interesting! But this, as you understand, is not at all true.

In Yandex Metrica this parameter is calculated completely differently. The bounce rate for it is the proportion of visits during which only one page view took place. Moreover, if the “accurate bounce rate” mode is enabled in the settings (I talked about how to do this in), then there is a special limit of 15 seconds for such visits. That is, if during the specified period of time some goal was not achieved or the visitor simply left our blog, then such a visit is counted as a refusal.

I consider this indicator quite important, but for my blog, of course, I only look at data from Yandex Metrica. If you are a webmaster of a commercial website, then of course you need to include data from Google Analytics in the analysis.

New visits

Everything is simple here - the parameter shows the number of unique visitors who visited our site for the first time over a certain period of time. Typically, its data grows as smoothly as visits. If there are any jumps, you need to look for their cause. This often happens if some popular site has placed a link to our resource page. Here's how in this example:

As you can see in the image, on August 22, compared to other days of this month, there was a serious jump in the “new visits” parameter. As far as I remember, it was during these days that there was another update of the Yandex search engine, which, along with the usual changes, brought some terrible limelight to some bloggers called AGS. But as it turned out, it was a search engine error and later everything returned to normal for the owners of these blogs. Let's return to this jump - I decided to check why there was an increase in new visitors on this particular day. While analyzing various reports, I saw the following information about search traffic data:

It is clearly seen from this picture that such a jump occurred precisely because my blog began to rank better in the Russian search engine. And this brought completely new readers to the pages of my blog.

As you can see, dear friends, by analyzing your blog based on traffic indicators, you can see a lot useful information and get answers to a variety of questions. In the next post I will share the results with you search engine promotion my blog, I’ll show you different graphs and diagrams and share secrets about how I... See you again!

Sincerely, Your Maxim Dovzhenko

We released new book“Content Marketing on Social Media: How to Get into Your Followers’ Heads and Make Them Fall in Love with Your Brand.”

Whoever owns the information owns the world. For websites this statement is very true. In order to find out the traffic to someone else’s site, you need to identify all possible resources and methods that can find out someone else’s statistics. This post also describes an excellent method to find out the traffic on someone else’s website.

You can find out the traffic to someone else's site using:

1. Liveinternet;
2. Yandex Metrica;
3. Alexa;
4. Ratings analysis;
5. Analysis of a competitor's website.

Counters

Liveinternet

I can also recommend from our employee, it is very convenient for collecting the semantic core.

Then, after receiving the competitor’s CN, you need to identify the competitor site by CN and check the frequency. Based on this, you can calculate the approximate attendance. Let's look at an example:

website: site.ru

keys:
key1;100;3
key2;150;1
key3;200;6

Let's decipher the first line: key1 - keyword, 100 - frequency, 3 - position in the search results.

To calculate now we need CTR, let's take statistics from foreign web studios. Let's distribute CTR to positions.
As you can see, the data differs greatly in the first 3 positions from the results of the analysis of other years. Personally, I think it’s just a matter of years, not companies. Every year the quality of sites and search results improves accordingly.

For the third position, the approximate CTR is 10%, again, this greatly depends on the written title and snippet, topic. Everything is individual, these are just averages. Let's continue counting.

With 100 requests per month and 0.10 click probability, we get 10 visits per month for one key. If you count everything completely semantic core, this will give us an approximate result, but as you can see, the method is quite labor-intensive, but possible.

There are also services for automatically collecting positions. And if you take the average CTR for each position, creating a small program will not be difficult at all.

If you approach it smarter, you can derive the formula.

A= i=0nV(ki)P(ti,si,hi,z)

A – Required value (amount of competitor’s traffic per month).

V – Function for obtaining the number of requests for ki(wordstat).

P - Function for calculating CTR (click probability).

ti- Title and snippet (as you know, the title and snippet represent the site in search engines, in the search results, ti helps the user make the right decision).

si- Position in the top of the site by key ki.

hi- Urgency factor of the key (for example, “order a tow truck urgently” people

they will not study the results, but are simply looking for a quick solution to the problem.

On the contrary, the key “buy a wedding dress” is one of those queries in which girls can reach page 10 after looking at all sites).

z - Brand reputation coefficient.

The formula, of course, is generalized, because Geo-dependence is not taken into account (at a minimum), and the functions of obtaining brand reputation and the title+snippet click-through rate are not described in detail.

Although it can be assumed that coffee The clickability of the title+snippet depends on:

1. occurrence of ki in title;
2. occurrence of ki in the snippet;
3. the presence of attractive/interesting words (click, at a price of 739 rubles, cheap, discounts, etc.);
4. cof. attractiveness favicon.

If you go even deeper,

1. Parse the entry into the title and snippet:

a) full entry;

b) incomplete.

You can also break down “incomplete” into further subparagraphs (how incomplete) ... and so on. We could go on for a very long time, so let’s end here.

By the way, we have a lot of instructional articles that contain a lot of practical advice with a history of many years of practice. Of course, we were thinking about setting up a thematic mailing list, but we haven’t had time yet. So what's most convenient

We check open traffic counters on the site. We determine traffic using LiveInternet and Yandex.Metrica. If we don’t find anything, we display approximate data from Alexa.
The cost of checking one request is 4

One per line.

Check

Why check site statistics

Data on website traffic is needed by analysts, marketers and webmasters. When analyzing competitors or checking a search query, marketers receive a list of sites. Sites are studied in detail and the first step is to analyze the traffic to these sites.

According to our data, 70% of sites do not display traffic counters on the page, so it will not be possible to quickly check traffic. A marketer is looking for counter codes in source code. But unfortunately, even the found counter code does not guarantee access to site traffic. Data may be private. Unfortunately, in this case, only comparing the site in similarweb or alexa services with open counters on other sites will help.

Where do we get traffic data from?

We find the codes of the installed meters on the website we are checking. After this, we check whether the counter data is open. If they are open, we display the site’s daily traffic. Number of views and visitors.

Defining open statistics the following systems:

• Yandex.Metrica
• LiveInternet

Content
1. Basic tools for traffic analysis.
2. Differences between Google Analytics and Yandex Metrica.
3. Metrics for traffic analysis.
4. Example. Analysis of website traffic in Google Analytics.
5. Site audience report.
6. Source/channel report.
7. Login Page Report.
8. Simple filters in Google Analytics.
9. Simple goals in Google Analytics.

Today I propose to talk about tools for analyzing website traffic, as well as about the metrics that should be tracked.

Webmasters and Internet marketers today have the opportunity to obtain a huge amount of information about traffic to their sites. At the same time, we receive not only quantitative indicators, but also have the opportunity to establish qualitative metrics

1. Basic tools for traffic analysis

Most experts recommend installing the two most popular tools for web analytics: Google Analytics and Yandex Metrica. We install counters for these systems immediately after completing site development. Installing exactly two systems at the same time allows you to get a more complete picture of user behavior on the site; both metrics have their pros and cons, which we will consider below.

2. Main differences between Google Analytics and Yandex Metrica

Yandex Metrica

1. Webvisor. Visual record of a user's visit. Form analytics.
2. Notifications about problems with the site. Email message email or SMS if the site is not available.
3. Real key queries from Yandex search. Unlike GA, you can see which key phrases the user clicked on from the search.
4. Improved bounce rate. In GA you can also modify the counter code.
5. Target call. Built-in call-tracking

Many are already available in New Metrica Google features Analytics, which gave him a significant advantage. But the quality of their implementation is still questionable.

Google Analytics

6. Source/channel report

Let's pay attention to the first column. In it, all 9548 sessions are broken down by traffic sources/channels. For my blog, the three leading sources are: Yandex search - 5436, Google search– 2517, and direct transitions – direct.

Well, now comes the most interesting part. For each of these channels, we have the opportunity to see a standard set of metrics that we discussed above in the text and compare them.

Traffic quality indicators for transitions from search engines Google systems noticeably higher. On average, each session from Google is 18 seconds longer. The depth of page viewing for transitions from Yandex is 1.17, for traffic from Google 1.3.

Why are conversion metrics different for different search engines? The thing is that transitions from search engines are made to different pages for different search queries. Each search engine has various blog posts in the TOP of search results.

In the next report, I propose to look at user behavior on various pages of the site. To do this, go to the Behavior/Site Content/ section Login pages.

7. Login Page Report

In this report, you can see how much certain site content keeps users on the site. For example, the most popular post on my blog in search has very low quality scores, as evidenced by the bounce rate of 94.31% and the time on site of 25 seconds. Even though I've made this post as useful as possible, it probably won't perform any better, at least in Google Analytics, due to .

Using the Login Pages report, it is very convenient to analyze user behavior for each page separately. This report also allows you to see which site posts bring more or fewer visitors to the site.

8. Simple filters in Google Analytics

The material is in the process of being finalized.

More about web analytics:

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Learning from the mistakes of others and adopting the tricks of industry leaders is a winning tactic for competent managers.

That is why more and more entrepreneurs are becoming traffic spies, trying by any means to obtain information about traffic to a competitor’s website, the sources of its traffic and the main search queries. Such studies make it possible to quickly achieve your goals, saving budget and time.

Do you want to reach the TOP and increase sales? Find out below what algorithm of actions is applicable for the correct analysis of competitors' traffic!

Why do you need to analyze the traffic of another company?

If you are just planning to open a project, studying statistics will be an excellent option for testing your niche. The data obtained is a guide to the upcoming scope of work, as well as audience coverage when using the same keywords, like a competitor.

In addition to assessing the potential of the industry and the level of future income, checking the traffic of someone else’s portal will help:

• choose the best website promotion strategy based on good decisions competitors;
• decide whether to buy this or that site;
• understand whether it makes sense to post guest posts on the site;
• find out the approximate conversion rate from competitors;
• study their strengths and weaknesses;
• choose a benchmark in terms of content and usability.

Have in mind!

In Internet marketing, there is no magic button that, when pressed, will get maximum targeted traffic to your site. The secret of success is unchanged - you need to take care of your visitors, regularly publish honest and original articles, and improve your service.

But thanks to the analysis of the resources of colleagues in the field, you can learn about non-standard promotion methods and small tricks that can benefit your project.

See how it's done...

Analyzing competitors under a microscope

The SEO intelligence plan is as follows:

1. We calculate direct competitors

Look for similar websites with properties you are interested in (price range, similar geographic location, specific services). Having thought through the nuances of your activity and product, it will not be difficult to determine the important factors of labor.

Enter key phrases related to your business in different variations into the Google and Yandex search bar. Then carefully study the search engine and advertising block- get to know your opponents by sight.

2. We stop at 3–5 sites

Don't try to cover the vast - limit yourself to a few high-quality projects from competitors. Opt for experienced, proven resources that are involved specifically in your niche. Pay special attention to industry leaders.

3. Look at website traffic

Use attendance counters, manual checking or special programs, free and paid services. Below you will learn details about each technique and type of analyzer!

Advice: Regularly study your competitors, taking into account not only the number of visitors, but also traffic channels, mentions on social networks, and key queries from the TOP 10. This will make the picture more complete and objective.

Simple ways to find out your competitor's website traffic

So what options are there?

• Counters

Most resources have informers in the footer or side column that show the number of views and readers per hour, day, week, month.

• Page "Advertising on the site"

Owners of popular sites usually do not hide traffic data from search engines from potential advertisers, sometimes even providing interesting facts about the demographics, gender, and age of the audience.

Example on Jlady
Example from Dajlapu

Please note! This information is not always up to date. You need to trust only those online platforms that indicate the date last update statistics.

• Request numbers in person

Nothing prevents you from pretending to be an advertiser and asking a blogger about the traffic to his resource. This is one of the most reliable methods, but even it does not guarantee 100% objectivity. The webmaster is able to fabricate data to increase the interest of advertisers. In addition, not everyone has it installed and configured correctly. Google service Analytics.

• Assumption

The most inaccurate method. You can also determine the popularity of a site by indirect factors. For example, by the number of posts, likes on buttons social networks, shares and comments (we take into account the average). Backlinks and a guest book will help you evaluate how alive the project is.

If the website is associated with a YouTube channel, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki or Facebook groups, be sure to go to them and analyze the activity.

Services for assessing search traffic

You're probably wondering which ones? The list of the most popular analyzers is as follows. The data in the table and prices are current as of December 2017.

Service	Market	Paid version	trial version	Free version
	CIS, US, EU	$1099 per month	—
	CIS, US, EU	$19-$2500 per month	—	Yes, 10 requests per day
	CIS, US, EU	$99.95-$399.95 per month	—	Yes, 10 requests per day
	CIS, US, EU	$99-$999 per month	7 days for $7	No
	US, EU	$99-$149 per month	7 days	No
	US, EU	N/A	N/A	Yes, limited functionality

SimilarWeb

If the subject’s website does not have a traffic counter, we recommend using the analyzer mentioned above (before the rebranding it was called prodvigator).

This easy-to-use, multifunctional service demonstrates search analytics, provides analysis of keywords and paid results. In addition, you can find out the position of the resource, monitor backlinks, receiving data in the form of understandable infographics.

You can also find competing projects that are most similar in traffic and relevance

Without registration and free version functionality will be reduced. Individual plans start at $19 per month, and for companies - from $499.

Allows you to obtain information about site traffic in a matter of seconds. An analysis of keywords, product advertisements of other companies, and a visual comparison of their domains are available for viewing.

You will receive an analytical report on the success or decline of the site’s position, and you will be able to carefully study the advertising strategy of your competitors. The presented service also makes it possible to study the authority and types of backlinks, audience engagement from social networks.

Price for monthly plans - $99.95-$399.95, there is a free version.

A reliable assistant to an optimizer aimed at winning the fight for visitors. It focuses on cross-link analysis, domain name comparison, and key query checking.

Information about the opponent's articles that received greatest number shares will help you adjust your content strategy. And reports on the dynamics of the growth of its link mass will make it possible to eliminate the likelihood of falling under the filters of your own resource.

Website owners note not only the efficiency and versatility of the platform, but also its high cost: from $99 to $999 per month. For this reason, the purchase tariff plan It is only advisable when we are talking about working on a large portal.

Alexa

This service is used to determine the popularity of a site using the Alexa Traffic Ranks parameter - the amount of visitors from social networks, search engines and other sources.

On alexa.com, the user will receive information about the most popular sites in different categories and countries, and will quickly find similar projects, that is, their direct competitors, based on the overlap of keys and audiences. A useful tool is a competitor keyword matrix: it will show you the queries you are not using that will bring in new readers.

Issue price - $99 for basic version and $149 for advanced (monthly).

Another foreign service with a demonstration of ranking, intended mainly for English-language blogs.

By visiting, you will be able to find out the traffic of the resource, as well as the age, gender and geographical location of the target audience. Such knowledge is indispensable for those who want to win the favor of potential readers and product customers. However, you will receive this information only if the competitor himself added his online store here for audit and promotion.

You should only think about using the service if you have an English-speaking business.

LiveInternet

Do you want to know the traffic of a competitor’s site?

If the numbers on the counter of a competitor's site from LiveInternet are hidden from outsiders, enter http://counter.yadro.ru/logo;site.ru/?29.1 into the browser line, replacing site.ru with the name of the desired site. Thus, you will see the number of views and visits per day, week and month.

Data Accuracy Warning

The services are not responsible for errors in calculations, so you cannot rely entirely on the statistics provided. Each site uses its own algorithms and metrics, the error of which is 20–70% in the direction of overestimation or underestimation. Moreover, finding out the exact traffic of a young or small site is most problematic.

Therefore, treat the data received as relative, compare your competitors with each other, figure out how much you lag behind your competitors.

Conclusion

In addition to analyzing competitor traffic, analyzers can provide a lot of useful information. Therefore, we advise you to test everything popular programs and extensions.

The most important thing you should understand from analyzing the traffic of competing businesses is not the absolute numbers, but the strategies that allowed you to achieve your goals.

Which service do you use, and how useful is it? Share your experience in the comments!