To start optimizing the site, you need to go through the preparatory stage. During this period, specialists usually draw up a resource development plan, and then think over the general concept, work on a business plan. It is also necessary to determine the traffic of someone else’s website in order to analyze the success of their competitors in this niche.
Attendance
It is also called website traffic. It is determined by the number of real people who switched to the resource. In this case, it does not matter on which page they held their attention.
In addition to the total number of people who visited your or someone else’s site, you can collect data on the location of users, their age, gender, hobbies and much more.
Analysis Basics
How to find site traffic statistics? If we are talking about your project, special services will help in this matter. If you are promoting on Google, then you need to use Google Analytics. Yandex has the Metrika service for this.
If you need "bare" numbers, then you can simply install the counter on the site, which will be located at the top or bottom of the page and indicate the number of visits. At the same time, you will not have the opportunity to study more specific indicators of traffic.
Services from Google and Yandex
You can determine the site traffic using the above services. In general, they collect not only traffic data, but also work on calculating other important parameters for optimization: conversion, page popularity, keyword performance, etc.
For these resources to work and help determine site traffic, you need to put the code of a program in the body of the resource code. Experts advise inserting both counters in order to analyze two analysts at once. If you are not going to advance in Yandex, you can use GA.
Code setting
In order for the resource to begin collecting analytics from the entire site, you need to go to it and register. It is best to indicate the name of the project in the first column. Next, write the name of the site, and then indicate its address and time zone.
Now go to the main page of Google Analytics. In the lower left corner the gear icon will be available. You need to click on it to go to the service settings. Here we look at the column "Resource". In it we find the line "Tracking". We click on it to make the code available to us. The service will provide a code that can:
- Copy to notepad and give it to the programmer who knows where to install it.
- Use the appropriate plugin, which will install the code itself.
- Manually install.
To determine site traffic, you can set the GA code yourself. To do this, insert it as the first element in the <HEAD> section of each page. Remember that resources that have a counter will collect statistics for you. Therefore, immediately decide for yourself from which pages you need to collect data, and from which not. Experts recommend not using the code in the "Administrator", since only the site owner sees it.
Data in the service will appear in 6-12 hours. After that, it will be possible to start collecting statistics.
How to work with GA
How to know the page traffic? This is pretty simple. We return to the main page of the service, which shows the graph. Here you can see how many users came today, examine the bounce rate and session duration.
To get more detailed information, select the “Reports” section on the left. Here you can view real-time traffic data. More graphs and numbers will appear. In general, nothing is complicated here, since Google clearly signs each of them.
In the “Overview” tab, you can see general information on the users who are currently on the site. Next, you can analyze their location, traffic sources, the pages on which they are located, events (they need to be set independently) and conversion.
Also on the side there is an analysis of the audience. Here you can not only determine site traffic, but also learn more about your users. For example, in which country or city they are located, which browser, operating system or Internet provider are using.
Cheat
How to determine the site traffic cheat? If we are talking about someone else's resource, then only intuitively. You will have to look at different services indicators, reader activity and other factors. But you still will not get comprehensive answers.
But with the wrap on your own site, things are easier. To do this, you will again have to turn to Google Analytics. Here you will need to see all reports by audience. What should I look for?
In general, it all depends on the individual site. For example, you may notice that at some point the number of visitors has increased dramatically. Next, select the period in which a similar anomaly began, and look at the sources, failure rates, viewing depth and time on the site. All data must be true.
For example, if you see on a chart or in a table that several visitors in a row visited only the main page, were there for 5 minutes, and after exploring another 5 pages, then think about whether this could be a coincidence.
You will also have to research the search queries. As a rule, ordinary users do not formulate them accurately. Sometimes they make grammatical mistakes, write very long phrases.
Robots can also go for requests that are somewhere at the very bottom of the list, which is hardly possible for ordinary visitors. Finally, suspicious sites may serve as referral sources.
Competitors
How to determine the traffic to a competitor’s site? There are not many options, and the results may be inaccurate. However, traffic can be determined using counters and special services.
Why do you need to do this? First, when you decide to start a business on the Internet, you should analyze your competitors anyway. It is always better to learn from the mistakes of others. In addition, you can learn something interesting and adopt it.
How to determine the number of visits
For this, you can use counters and special services. Counters are site widgets that can indicate the number of resource users. Most often they relate to statistics, and do not indicate any analytics.
The most popular counters are Rambler, Bigmir or Mail.Ru. It is worth saying right away that they are almost never installed on commercial resources. Now they can be found on information and news sites.
They indicate the number of users for the year, month, week, and today. Sometimes they show the number of visitors online in real time. If the site owner winds up traffic, then the data from the counters will be false.
If you find the counter on the page, just click on it and get statistics. Sometimes it is partially open, so not all data can be obtained.
Resources
You can also find out the competitor’s website traffic using special resources:
- SE Ranking.
- Semrush.
- Serpstat.
These are the most popular services that help to collect statistics, even indicate some analytical data.
SE Ranking is a popular resource that not only helps to check traffic, but also performs a huge number of other tasks: compiling a semantic core, clustering, marketing plan, SEO audit and much more.
By analyzing traffic, you can get data on organic and paid SERPs, find out keywords by which a competitor is moving, etc.
SEMrush is also a partially paid resource, which provides a huge number of options for website analytics (yours and your competitor). Here you can define common and unique keywords. All information is clearly visualized, turning into graphics.
Serpstat is a service that performs many tasks: it can analyze keywords, paid results and content, monitor positions, research the market, and audit the site.
Thanks to this resource, you can find direct competitors and analyze their performance. For these purposes, it is convenient to use the option “Compare domains”, exploring keywords and positions. You can also find the most popular pages of a competitor to study their success.