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Website Traffic Statistics: How to Read and Interpret

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Website Traffic Statistics: How to Read and Interpret

Read time 11 min read
Website traffic statistics

Test your SEO in 60 seconds! Diib is one of the best SEO tools in the world. Diib uses the power of big data to help you quickly and easily increase your traffic and rankings. We’ll even let you know if you already deserve to rank higher for certain keywords.

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After creating an elegant website, the next important step is increasing its traffic. Without a proper understanding of how to analyze traffic metrics, web administrators can grapple with what to do to make their sites popular. However, armed with tools to check website traffic free of charge, you can better position yourself for success.

Luckily, reading and interpreting average website traffic statistics is no herculean task. Once you get your hands on metrics such as bounce rates, site performance, and the number of visitors, you can devise strategies for retaining and attracting visitors as well as improving conversion rates.

If you are new to website traffic statistics and you have no idea where to start, then you should find it valuable and actionable in this piece. Also, experienced web administrators who know about web traffic tools but want ways to use traffic data to increase conversions are welcome. Buckle up and prepare for a smooth ride to more traffic. First off, the basics.

What Is Website Traffic Statistics?

Website traffic statistics refers to a group of metrics that shed more light on visitors to a website. Besides knowing how many people navigated to your website, it is imperative to know the path they followed to browsing your site, what they did once they found the site, the webpages they checked, etcetera.

The specific metrics that make up average website traffic statistics are:

Users

As the name suggests, this metric indicates the number of people who visited your website. Thus, if a user visits your website two or three times, they feature on this counter only once.

Sessions

This metric is where web servers record all visits to your page. If one user navigates to your website severally, every visit will count as a new session if there is a thirty-minute interval between each visit.

Pages per Session

Pageviews indicate how deep a visitor went into your site. It shows all the pages they visited in a particular session.

Time on the Page

Also called the session duration, it is a measure of the time a user spent on a certain page. On a deeper level, it shows how engaging the content your website is.

Bounce Rates

The bounce rate is an indicator of the number of visitors who either:

  • Left your website after a fifteen-second session
  • Viewed only one page

The definition varies with the tool you are using.

Channel

The channel metric captures data on what referred visitors to your website. In other words, it details your website’s sources of traffic.

Devices

It is important to know the device a user used to navigate your website. This metric categorizes users’ devices as either desktop, tablet, or phone.

Position

The position is a number showing how your website ranks in search engine results. Usually, this metric ranks your website to other sites globally.

Click-Through Rate

Abbreviated CTR, this metric is a ratio of the number of views your website has to the number of clicks it receives.

Note that the metrics above are the standard components you can find in a modern web analytics tool. There are premium platforms that may avail even more insightful data points that enrich your statistics. However, their definition of the terms above may vary. Be sure to check how your live website traffic checker describes the metrics it uses.

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Where Does Website Traffic Statistics Come From? 

Before getting into where to get web analysis traffics from, it is good to understand how a website traffic calculator operates. The process is quite simple and goes something like:

  • A user, new or returning, navigates your website
  • They check out web pages that are of interests to them
  • As your web server fulfills requests, it sends small files to the user’s browser. The files, named cookies, collect data from the user and send it to the web server. Most websites allow users to select what data the web server can collect.
  • After collecting data about a specific user’s sessions, the web server keeps files about those visits in a database. In analytics, the records’ name is server logs. Analytics software uses the logs to determine who the new users are, how long a user stayed on a site, etcetera.
  • Once you visit web analytics software, you receive an overview of your site’s performance in a human-readable format, usually in the form of tables and graphs

Where to Get Website Traffic Statistics

Your web server will store data about website visitors on a database. Most web hosts show all data captured on the subpages of a control panel. From there, you can read some metrics concerning your site’s traffic.

However, doing so is a less than ideal way of acquiring traffic data. Are you wondering why? Well, there are some tools designed to collect and present data on your website visitors only. The analytic tools are:

Google Analytics (GA) 

If you are looking to check website traffic free online, Google Analytics is the best option. It is free, resourceful and 54% of websites use it. By searching for “check website traffic Google” online, you should find a heap of information on Google Analytics. To start using it, connect the analytics software to your website, give it twenty hours for your site’s data to appear, and you are good to go. For example:

Website traffic statistics

(Image Credit: Neil Patel)

To get the most of Google analytics, use it in conjunction with the Google Search Console. This tool narrows its focus on search engine optimization. Thus, it analyzes your site’s performance and provides the data that lays the foundation for developing SEO strategies.

The only Google Analytics’ shortcoming is that it does not provide you with data about your competitors’ websites. Remember, the fight for valuable customers on the internet is high. You need to know your rival’s strategy before you make your own.

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Alexa

Alexa is among the best platforms for carrying out a competitive analysis. You can then develop the marketing mix to give your competition a run for their money. Of course, you can check website traffic statistics concerning your website. For instance:

Website traffic statistics

(Image Credit: Seperia)

Unlike Google Analytics, you have to subscribe to an Alexa plan for continued use. But there is a 30-day trial period where you can check website traffic free online. If the platform is worth it, you go ahead and choose a plan.

Other than Alexa, you can use the following tools to read your traffic or that of your competitors:

  • Ahrefs
  • SEMrush
  • Similarweb

There are many answers to “how to check the number of visitors to my website, ” with a plethora of tools to cherry-pick. As with all online products, be sure to check some reviews of the product you are entrusting your website’s success to.

Interpreting Website Traffic Statistics

Using the correct website traffic calculator to check web visitor counters may not be important if you do not understand the data. The statistics are even more useless if you have no idea how to use the data to attract better key performance indicators. Remember the metrics mentioned earlier? Let’s go to the nitty-gritty and understand what they mean.

Users

In Google Analytics, the “Users” metric is a counter of all visitors to your website. You can view this website statistics free of charge by signing in to your GA account and checking the overview tab located under “Audience.” For example:

Website traffic statistics

(Image Credit: SEO Rave)

To get a clear understanding of traffic, compare the total users in different periods. Most web analytics tools conveniently provide a graph, making it easy to see traffic changes over time. Should you notice an upward trend, it means your campaign is working. A continued drop in the total number of users means there is room for improvement.

However, this metric will not tell you what to do to increase traffic. It only shows how effective your campaign is. The “new users” widget is especially helpful as it is the true measure of your efforts to attract customers. To shed some light on strategies to improve conversion rates, you need to look at other statistics.

Sessions

Located on GA’s overview page, sessions answer the question: “How many times did users visit your site?” Since a single user can navigate your site multiple times a day, the number of sessions always exceeds total users. To add value to the data on sessions, you can use a live website traffic checker and review what users are doing in real-time.

The “Sessions” metric makes more sense once you compare it to total users. Suppose you find out that the sessions counter surpass all users by 30%, then 30% of users navigate your site more than once. You can ascertain the frequency at which users revisit your website by reading the “Number of sessions per user” ratio. If you find a number like 2.2, then each visitor comes back to your site 2.2 times on average.

There is no ideal percentage of sessions to maintain. However, aiming at a 70% increase in new sessions, especially when running campaigns, is a good idea. Unquestionably, you need to set achievable targets. The 70% bar may be too high for small businesses with a low budget.

Pages per Session

Also located on the GA overview page, this is a measure of how many pages a visitor viewed in a particular session. From this description, you can guess that “pages per session” is a ratio, and it should ideally be at least 4.4 for a content website. Online stores can have lower ratios but nothing below two. Here is where the pages per session statistics is on Google Analytics is:

Website traffic statistics

(Image Credit: Elegant Themes)

High “pages per session” shows that your website is the epitome of engaging content. However, it is unwise to use the ratio as the only indicator of how well you engage your visitors. Check out these two scenarios:

  • A high ratio, coupled with a high bounce rate, shows that visitors have difficulty finding what they want.
  • Low “pages per session” with numerous conversions indicate that visitors went straight to the product they wanted and checked out.

Before concluding that increasing or maintaining your current “pages per session” is the best course of action, check other metrics that may inform your decision. As you can see, high and low ratios may mean well for your website if looked at from a different angle.

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Time on the Page

Session duration tells you how long visitors stayed on your website. While you want this metric to be as high as possible, two or three minutes are ideal durations to maintain. Within this period, a user has ample time to engage with your site’s content and interact with an ad or two. Of course, sites with numerous interactivity tools may require longer durations to allow for actions such as liking and commenting.

As you might be thinking, you can increase session durations with simple actions such as:

  • Improving your web content readability through better fonts and colors
  • Including high-quality images alongside texts
  • Keeping load times at the minimum
  • Making use of internal links
  • Uncluttering your site by removing unnecessary links, images, and other elements
  • Including forms for user users to comment

Bounce Rates

The bounce rate is either the percentage of users who never went beyond a single page or spent fifteen minutes or less on the site. Google Analytics uses the latter as its definition for a simple reason. Picture a user that visits your site, gets the information they need on the first page, and spend four or five minutes engaging with it. Since the user never went to a second page, this can be a bounce. But is it? Definitely not.

From the example above, interpreting bounce rates in conjunction with other metrics is vital. A relatively low bounce rate coupled with short session durations shows that users have trouble locating useful information. They, thus, flip through numerous pages and leave.

While you want to keep your bounce at a minimum, it is almost impossible to maintain a zero rate. The standard rate stands at 50%. However, the rate will vary from industry to industry. Be sure to check what percentage applies to your business.

Website traffic statistics

(Image Credit: Mangools)

Channel

Channels give details about your traffic sources. You can view channel statistics under the “Acquisition” tab. After locating the “All traffic” tab, view the “Channel” sub-category. Unlike the “All users” metric on the overview tab, GA presents “Channels” metrics in a tabular format.

There are about seven traffic sources for your website, namely: organic, direct, referrals, paid search, social, email, and display. Alternative traffic sources that do not fit the above categories fall under the “Other” sources.

If you find a certain channel not meeting the expectation you have for it, you can devise improvement methods. Similarly, you can stop pursuing channels with a low ROI and focus on what is working.

Devices

Located under the “Mobile” sub-category of “Audience” in GA, the “Devices” metric sheds light on the device visitors used to navigate your website. Most web analytics tools give website statistics free of cost on the number for mobile, tablet, and desktop visitors. For example:

Website traffic statistics

(Image Credit: Cross Browser Testing)

If you find one device category way higher than the others, then it would be wise to optimize your site for that device. However, optimizing your website for mobile phones is a smart move, whether the number of smartphone users is high or not. If you have enough capital, consider maintaining separate desktop and mobile phone versions for your website.

Position

The average position of your website is one of the statistics you get from Google Search Console. It shows how the keywords on your site rank in search engines. Thus, your average position is the best way to check website traffic Google reports when implementing SEO.

Since Google Search Console gives the position in terms of averages, you should peek under the hood to analyze different pages’ position. Otherwise, you risk wasting time improving a well-performing page.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Also a Google Search Console product, the CTR reports clicks that resulted from impressions. It is quite popular with paid ads, but it also applies to organic profit. Primarily, CTR shows how relevant your website’s content is to search engines. For example:

Website traffic statistics

(Image Credit: Moz)

You generally want to maintain a high CTR, but a 2% rate is the industry standard. Niche websites may require a higher rate of about 4% as their content targets a specific audience. You can increase a low CTR by:

  • Writing better titles and Meta descriptions
  • Creating relevant content
  • Getting started with keyword targeting

While analyzing the CTR, remember to check your conversion rates too. If your website is short of the required 2%, devise strategies to get conversions up.

Diib®: Get Complete Website Traffic Statistics Today!

The secret to high and quality traffic lies in the numbers. Thus, a solid understanding of what average website traffic statistics mean is an invaluable tool for web administrators aiming for higher conversions. Do not forget to use tools that allow you to check website traffic free of charge, as they can significantly reduce a campaign’s costs.

Diib Digital offers comprehensive metrics on your overall website traffic and performance. This gives you the ability to change up the minute details of your campaign, allowing for better performance. Here are some of the features of our User Dashboard we’re sure you’ll love:

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  • Bounce rate monitoring and repair
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  • Broken pages where you have backlinks (404 checker)
  • Technical SEO monitoring; including site traffic analysis

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FAQ’s

The average local website visitor views approximately 2.17 pages per session. Mobile only visitors view 1.88 pages per session. 54% of websites don’t have goals set up in Google Analytics, which can really help you keep your focus.

This is simple. Login to your Google Analytics account and click Behavior > site content. From this view you can choose whether to view traffic sources for all your web pages, landing pages or exit pages.

Buying traffic usually results in low-quality traffic which is ineffective and can actually cause your website more harm than good.

This statistic can vary greatly depending on the company, its stage and audience. That being said, a good growth benchmark is 10-20% monthly.

The number of visitors you have to your website usually translates to the number of opportunities you have to add new customers. In this way, website traffic is vital to your website health and overall business goals.

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Daniel Urmann

Author Bio:

Daniel Urmann is the co-founder of Diib.com. Over the past 17 years Daniel has helped thousands of business grow online through SEO, social media, and paid advertising. Today, Diib helps over 150,000 business globally grow online with their SaaS offerings. Daniel’s interest include SMB analytics, big data, predictive analytics, enterprise and SMB search engine optimization (SEO), CRO optimization, social media advertising, A/B testing, programatic and geo-targeting, PPC, and e-commerce. He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) focused in Finance and E-commerce from Cornell University – S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management.

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