Setting up a blog or website once and forever is what we all hope for, but your job does not end there.

Even if your blog or website is running fine and you do not encounter any technical problems, you should spend some time testing and monitoring them.

 

There is always room for improvement!

 

Testing and site monitoring are very important, if you want to ensure smooth operation and maximize your revenue. Even if you are not a techie, there are many easy-to-use tools, which you can take advantage of in order to test your site and monitor its performance.

 

For instance, one of the most valuable types of data you can get is your traffic statistics. You will be able to know who visited your site in graphical format and analyze your reports visual for easy assessment of your sites’ performance.

 

Depending on your hosting provider and the options they offer, you might have access to different types of statistical tools but even if all your host offer is the least sophisticated ones like Awstats; Awstats still offer so much detail that your head will start spinning if you want to explore all its features.

 

Awstats and different log analyzer tools shows you how many visitors you had per day, per week, per month, etc., which pages attracted the most traffic, how many unique visitors and page views you had, which keywords were the most popular, where you traffic comes from, and so on.

 

You should use all this data to see how your website or blog is performing and how you can optimize its performance.

 

One of the important entries to look for in a log file is the ‘404 Page Not Found’ (or similar) entry, which shows that there are broken links – either some of your pages are not linked properly or are simply missing but there is a link to them, and therefore they can’t be viewed by users given them false information or sending wrong messages about your site. If you’re able to know well in advance about such issues in your log file, you will be able to fix it before you lose many customers to a dead link.

 

Monitoring traffic statistics is not a waste of time, as you might think. Traffic statistics are important, if you want to know exactly what is happening to your site and to discover problems early – As I’ve motioned before, you don’t want to hear about one of your broken links from your visitor.

 

Sometimes your ad networks (like Google) will show you statistics about your site in detail, but most often, these statistics include the number of hits only (and sometimes the page views) and you will soon notice considerable discrepancies between the way ad networks calculate your traffic and the data in your log files. So, if you want to know what is really going on your site, take the time to read the log statistics.

 

In addition to Awstats, there are many other programs, which can be used for log analysis. There are even whole Web analytics packages but if you are a beginner Web master, you will hardly want to start with the sophisticated programs because they do offer a lot more features than you’ll need, and they take a lot of time to get familiarized with.

 

One good tool you can use for monitoring the performance of your site is the open-source application OpenX (formerly Openads). OpenX is not a log analyzer; it is an ad monitoring application.

 

You can use it to run ads from established ad networks, such as Google Adsense, DoubleClick, Yahoo! Publisher Network, and many others. One of the best things about OpenX is that you can use it to serve your own ads, so if you have advertisers, which are interested in buying ad space on your blog, you can publish their ads directly, without an intermediary ad network.

 

OpenX also provides very detailed statistics about your ad campaigns, such as Revenue Reporting, eCPM, CPC, CPA / CPL, Monthly Revenue, etc., so after you pass the beginning Web master stage, make sure that you check this tool and start using it!

 

Resources to get site monitoring tools: –

awstats.sourceforge.net/

webalizer.com/

openx.org/

 

The Main Area To Focus Your Measurement

Audience interactions like pages viewed, unique visitors versus repeat visitors, the time your visitors spent on your site and their interaction level (like how many pages do your visitors view) along with the comments and/or suggestions you are getting from them is very important and should be one of your main focus.

Click-Through Rate (CTR) tracking will allow you to know about your ads clicks, conversion rates, and your content relevancy to the visitors.

Your call-to-action like ‘Click Here to Get Your Free Report’ may seem insignificant but records have shown that making little changes to your call-to-action can increase your opt-in rate significantly.

You may test using a pointer like an arrow to direct your visitors to your call-to-action. You may also use bold colors to make it stand out from the rest of the texts. Test more call-to-actions variation and monitor your visitors’ reaction.

Social Media Analysis and Monitoring should include your conversion rate (how may traffic your site received compare to how may people actually sign up or bought something) – Please refer back to ‘How Socially Driven Site Works’ to read again if you need more exposure on this section. You need to have a targeted audience to get a better conversion rate!

Time Frame Comparison performance is another key measurement to know about visitors’ interaction. Track your visitors’ interaction and do time period comparison (monthly or quarterly). You might want to note the key events that occurred within the period that you perform better (holiday, recession etc.)

The main reason to track and measure your performance is to give you an opportunity to perform better and improve your productivity. It also helps you to cut your losses early by only investing your time and energy into what works for your business.

Do you want to know if Article Marketing really works? 

 

Testing And Site Monitoring Checklist

• To ensure smooth operation and maximize your revenues, you need to test and monitor your website.
• Collect and analyze traffic statistics.
• Monitor your site and your ad performance using advanced tools such as OpenX.
• Monitor your audience interaction on your site (page viewed and time spent)
• Track your click through rate if you have ads set up or if you are tracking your forums and ezine articles.
• Monitor your social media interactions; it is always a good idea to track the links you include in each site.
• Time frame performance will help you to plan for future activities. Some sites work best during the holidays, summer etc. This is good to know so that you can plan for your future events.