There are several ways to effectively monitor your traffic on the Internet. After a few years of research, the methods that work for me are: Google Analytics (a little difficult to navigate at first but you have to read the forums, the help files, M&P’s, etc.), Clicktale, and StatCounter.com.
Google Analytics can measure your site visitors’ trends, loyalty, what browser they use, provide a map to show you exactly where your visitors are coming from, unique visitors, pageviews, the average time spent on a particular page, and various percentages, such as the percentage of new visits.
For example, you might see "397 visits came from 12 countries/territories." Google Analytics will break it down country by country, state by state, and city by city. Of the 397 visits listed in the example (a real life example for a 2-week time frame), 213 were "absolute unique visitors" so that means that 184 were return visitors.
Google also gives you the opportunity to block your own views so that your stats will not be distorted or misleading.
Another novel approach to monitoring your traffic is through a company called ClickTale. With ClickTale, website owners add a small piece of JavaScript code to the page that you would like to have monitored. The JavaScript collects browsing data and transmits it to the ClickTale servers for processing.
From the code, ClickTale creates movies of browsing sessions in minutes, and website owners can log-in securely at any time to view these movies (don’t worry about your private information being viewed because hackers can’t place JavaScript code on a site they do not control).
That's right! Movies! You can view recorded events of how people browse your website or blog. You'll see what they clicked, when they clicked, and basically be able to follow their mouse movements as if you were looking over their shoulder as they browsed your website. ClickTale will not interfere with the JavaScript used by other packages such as Google Analytics, and the company only records the actions that the visitor makes while browsing a specific website. There is no audio or video recorded.
You can get more information about ClickTale here
A third method to monitor your website traffic is by using the free service offered by Stat Counter. Stat Counter is a free and reliable invisible web tracker. The company offers a highly configurable hit counter and real-time detailed web stats. All you do is insert a simple piece of our code on your web page or blog and you will be able to analyze and monitor all the visitors to your website in real-time.
The aforementioned methods will work for you and help you to get a complete grasp of your online ventures. Many people give up in the early stages because they find the programs "user-unfriendly." The problem is, most people want to jump right in and start swimming immediately without the lessons; or people want to walk before crawling. Bottom line for success, you have to READ the instructions; you have to browse the forums for answers. All the companies have help files and they are there for a reason. You cannot call anyone for assistance. Google has some contact numbers and if you are paying for google adwords you can get some phone help, but the free services are effective and they work quite well, but you're pretty much thrown in the water to eiter sink or swim.
Blessings.
Sincerely,
-Liane Schmidt.