If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. It's a cliché, but it's true. As an online business, you have to understand how many visitors your site receives. You have to know how much time they spend there, where they come from, and what pages they view.

• Page View/ Page Impression—the number of times a web page is accessed, regardless of how many hits generated.
• Unique View—a page view by a unique person or robot. If a someone has visited your web page yesterday, and they are returning today, their visit would qualify as a page view. The visit yesterday would qualify as a page view since it is the original page view within the measured time period.
• Referrer—an external page that links to your site. By studying your referrers, you can determine who is linked to your site. Understanding your referrer data can help you where your search engine traffic is coming from.
• Counters—perhaps you remember seeing page visitor counters on websites you have visited in the past. You may have seen a box showing that you are visitor number 37. Counters are normally located in the bottom section of a web page. Page counters are a sign of newbies. They are ugly and unprofessional. Worse, they are useless. The data gained from counters are unreliable. Don't use them.
• Trackers—a more sophisticated option to analyze user behavior and site traffic. They provide more indepth information than simple page counters. A tracker will break down your visitor statistics by date, time, visitor, unique visitor, browser, page viewed, referrer, and many other values.
• Using Your ISP's Statistical Package—most hosting companies offer complimentary tracking software. Some of the most popular tracking programs are AWStats and Webalizer. Both are open source programs, and they are free. These programs are easy to use. Each has a graphical user interface. The statistical data is presented in an easy to understand layout. Both AWStats and Webalizer will give you insight into where your site visitors are coming from, what web pages they are visiting, how much time they spend there, and what browsers they are using. Before you commit to a hosting company, check to see what statistical package they offer.

About the author: George Meszaros with Triumph On The Web.