In Part 1 of this article, we discussed some things you should look for when analyzing your log files. You should also look at:

* Top entry pages How are people first coming in to your site? Which pages are bringing you the most traffic? What about some of your other pages? What can you do to make them "top entry pages" too?

* Top exit pages Exit pages are another very important area of a log file, according to Degner.

"Where are they leaving? What off site links are they clicking on the most? If this is an intro page or another sub page that is a doorway, I may need to get rid of it or use a redirect. It tells me where I am losing visitors.

"As an example, a client insisted upon having a second intro page that played their radio commercial, so you clicked on the index page to enter and were stuck in a second media-enhanced page. We could see half of our traffic leaving right there and going no further into the site, which was a really big clue that it was a turn off to the surfing public.

"A lesson to corporate sites - a Web site is the wrong place to be vain. Serve up your product or service immediately or pay the price with an impatient dotCom'r.

"On other sites, we have discovered that a screen shots page made a huge difference in converting sales, and that was where the most orders came from (exit link was the order link)."

* Single access pages Which pages are being viewed by themselves, where visitors aren't even clicking to go to another page? Again, look at these pages carefully to see what you can provide on the page to keep up the interest of your visitors. You're losing them, and you need to figure out why.

* Errors, such as 404 pages If your visitors encounter too many error messages when visiting your Web Site, they'll assume that you don't do your "house cleaning," and the professional image of your site will plummet several notches.

* Most active countries If you want a corner of the international market, study this data carefully. How many user sessions are being generated for each country that's important to your business? How you can beef up efforts to improve those numbers?

Are you creating highly targeted information pages for your international keywords?

* Top referring sites and URLs

* Top referring search engines Do you have some top ranking pages in certain search engines, but you're not seeing coinciding traffic through those engines? If so, you may need to rethink your keyword strategy, because a truckload of #1's won't do you any good if traffic doesn't follow.

* Keywords that searchers are using to find your site If you're being found under a particular keyword in one engine but not another, boost efforts in the other search engine and try to bring in more traffic. Also, study this section closely for any holes in your keyword-thinking strategies.

* Browsers used by your visitors Check this section periodically to make sure that the technology offered at your Web site can be used by the majority of your visitors. In other words, if many of your visitors are accessing the web using older browsers, you will want to be careful about using technology that will prevent them from fully utilizing your Web site.

* Visiting spiders Which search engine spiders have visited your site recently? After submitting your pages to the engines, be sure to monitor this section closely for spider activity.

Excellent closing advice for positioners . . .

Ginette Degner says, "Keep track of when a spider hits your site and how deep and compare it to the dates you submit and the dates the pages actually appear in the index. You will start to see a pattern emerge with each engine. Yes, there are hiccups, but it will help you time your submissions, and when a client asks you when they can expect to see results, you can answer intelligently.

"When you are stumped as to why none of the words you optimized for are hitting, look at the logs. Use the words you see actually hitting with the search engines in your reporting files (WebPosition Gold). It can open your eyes and help you find more avenues of traffic for your client.

"At the very least, you can show some positions which will make a client more comfortable because you are showing they are getting traffic from the engines. This helps immensely when you hear 'I do not have any sales' from a client. You can steer the client to rethink their approach or sales copy."

So, take the time to analyze your traffic, and then put that valuable information to work on your Web site and reap the benefits of even more traffic!

Log Analysis Programs

o--written by Robin Nobles, Director of Training at the Academy of Web Specialists