Keeping Visitors

Forum Moderators: DixonJones

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Keeping Visitors

how can i make them stay longer?

knoir

2:37 pm on Mar 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

after observing my log files. i see that so far this month, 3700 people entered my site thru the main index page... on the bad note, 3200 exited the site thru that page also. Does this mean that they leave upon entering? if so, why would they leave so quick. This is what annoys me because i have very good placement on search engines and i get a lot of traffic.

any ideas?

trillianjedi

2:49 pm on Mar 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

Good content is generally what makes a site "sticky".

First port of call would be to review that. Check your logs - are people finding your site through off-topic searches?

Smiley

2:50 pm on Mar 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

Find out what search terms they are coming in on and give them the content they are looking for.

Smiley

flashfan

3:31 pm on Mar 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

How could we know if people follow the SE, and stay on your website? Is there a tool to draw the path of visited pages for visitors?

trillianjedi

3:34 pm on Mar 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

It's a feature of most web stat applications - they show the entry pages, exit pages and what search terms were used to get them there. And how long they stayed.

I think even the free stat programs offer this.

Critical data - you can't be without it.

Philip Hastings

3:41 pm on Mar 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

I'd like to see the page...mind posting the link?

pvh

flashfan

3:43 pm on Mar 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

Thank you, TJ.

I am using awstats. There are statistics of entry pages, exit pages and etc. I am wondering if there is a tool to see the breakdowns:
IP page1 [time1]-->page2 [time2]-->...->pagen [timen]

knoir

3:56 pm on Mar 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

I have tons of good content. Im constantly writing. Constantly adding pages and all that good stuff. I just dont know. I think it might be the template.. i just changed templates today. maybe that will do the trick.

trillianjedi

4:48 pm on Mar 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

flashfan : Oh, I see - sorry - misunderstood your question.

Sounds to me like Awstats doesn't do this then - a GREP or AWK script would probably do the trick (if you're on linux).

I have tons of good content. Im constantly writing. Constantly adding pages and all that good stuff.

If it's on-topic to the search queries that bring you the traffic then something is very wrong IMO. Either your users don't agree with you about your content being high quality and in quantity, or the design and link structure is poor - people can't find what they want quickly. If you're looking at a new template, it is perhaps the issue. Trial and error experimentation time I think.

In relation to content, my personal mantra is that of Neilson (I think):-

"Users do not come to your site to see your content. They come to your site looking for their content".

Users also have an ultra-short attention span. Get them to their content quickly, or you'll lose them to another site.

flashfan

5:12 pm on Mar 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

Users do not come to your site to see your content. They come to your site looking for their content

This is absolutely right. By tracking the activities of visitors (what brought them to our site and what pages they visited), we might picture what they are looking for. It will be great if there is a tool to analyze the path along.

ken_b

5:34 pm on Mar 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

Does this mean that they leave upon entering?

Maybe not. Many folks will navigate from the page they first landed on to another page and then back to the landing page and then exit from that page.

They may also land on some other page and navigate to your home page and exit from there.

What you might want to look at is the "single entry" (or similar) pages in your stats package.

There you might find how many visitors landed on your home page (or any other) and left from that same page without navigating to any other page on your site.

knoir

2:43 am on Mar 9, 2004 (gmt 0)

Well, i changed the page template. And to my surprise, my page views doubled. So maybe it was the page views. Thanks for all your great help guys. I will continue to update my site with information that visitors are looking for.

Shannon Moore

4:15 pm on Mar 9, 2004 (gmt 0)

Flashfan said:

This is absolutely right. By tracking the activities of visitors (what brought them to our site and what pages they visited), we might picture what they are looking for. It will be great if there is a tool to analyze the path along.

There are tools that will do this, such as Fluid Dynamics' "AXS Vistor Tracking". I've been evaluating it for awhile on one of my websites and it's providing interesting info into the browsing habits of users on that site.