Check the Browsers Your Visitors Use
Different browsers read code and render it in different ways. Browser capability is important if you are using HTML in your website – this could be a whole website coded in HTML or simply a custom piece of HTML used added using a widget in your website builder. While web standards are improving there are still discrepancies amongst different browsers. By checking the browser capability in your web statistics you can see what the most popular browsers are amongst your users. If the majority of your users are using Firefox then you want your site at its best in that browser, if you find that most of your users are using Internet Explorer then design with that in mind. While you won’t have this data when you initially look into how to make a website, you can build any browser specific changes into any future developments.
Check if People are Using Mobile Phones to Visit Your Site
More and more people are using their mobile devices to browse the internet. Do you know what your website looks like when viewed on a mobile phone? It’s worth checking it out. Looking at the mobile devices section of your web statistics will tell you if people are using mobile devices to visit your website and, if so, what devices they are. If you have a large number of visitors using phones to visit your site then you need to make sure it is of as high quality on a phone as your computer-based website. This may even involve having an entirely different mobile version of your site.
Note on Apple: To date, Apple does not allow Flash on any of its products. If you have a Flash website and your statistics are telling you that lots of people are using an iPhone to visit your site, then you have a lot of visitors who have only seen a little blue box. Wix is working on a way to make Wix websites compatible with the iPhone – stay tuned for updates!!
Where Are Your Visitors Located?
If you are trying to target specific markets it is often helpful to know where your visitors are coming from. You may have a site based in the USA but the majority of your visitors could be from France. In order to accommodate these visitors you might want to include translations of some of your pages. This will improve visitor loyalty and encourage your visitors to recommend your website to other people.
How Fast (or Slow) is Your Site Loading for Visitors?
Connection speed statistics are important as they allow you to gauge how long your page is taking to load in your visitors sites. If you have a large amount of images and animation then your site is going to take a long time to load for a visitor who is using dial-up. The connection speed of your visitor will probably reflect the type of site that you have: a web company selling cutting edge internet products is likely to have users with higher connection speeds than a site selling tea sets, for example. Before you start designing your site you will have an idea of what type of visitor you will have, checking the connection speeds of your visitors allows you to amend your site as necessary.
Noticing Trends
You can view trends over weeks or months, times of day, and years. This allows you to see what days, weeks and months are the most popular. If you are a beach resort you’ll probably see a spike of visitors in March while people plan their holidays, a business will see increased activity during the week with less at weekends. This statistic is particularly helpful if you want to carry out any website maintenance. You can bring the site down at times when it is least in use and avoid any major interruptions to your visitors.
