Tracking the effectiveness of Web sites is an imperfect science. Even with the relatively user-friendly WebTrends, it's difficult to pinpoint the actual number of visitors.
port royale 2 hex editorAccording to a July 29, 2003 article by Wil Reynolds called "Your Web Metrics Can Be All Wrong--Part 1" and published at www.marketingprofs.com, there are certain tracking red flags that should tell you that your visitor numbers might be (and likely are) skewed.
For example, the largest WebTrends number for most sites is visitors originating from AOL. Reynolds points out that, "If one AOL user views 10 pages on your site, your Web site analytics tool could be misled into thinking that 10 different users came to your site and each viewed only one page."
Also--if your site is programmed in FLASH, you might notice that, regardless of what page you are on, the URL in the browser bar stays the same. No matter how many different pages a visitor views, it will always appear as if the homepage is being loaded over and over again. Reynolds says, "Fortunately, not all FLASH and other dynamic sites are programmed in this manner, but many still are. For those that are, true analysis can be difficult and sometimes impossible."
Strategic marketers in law firms are increasingly being held accountable for ROI in their law firms. They rely on Web tracking data to start the analysis, as they should. Just be aware that the statistics might not be as accurate or telling as one might hope.
Posted by Deborah McMurray at August 6, 2003 09:11 AM | TrackBack