| Jun. 27 2006 at 11:53 AM |
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Hello all - I had a great time joining Jeff and Rich for this podcast, and they made me promise I'd get a discussion going in the community about any burning questions out there on the subject of site analysis and analytics tools.
So who's got questions about understanding your visitors and site traffic?
chuck fuller
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| Jun. 27 2006 at 6:47 PM |
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Hi Chuck,
I am experimenting with the MS Office Live (Essentials) on my site.
I'd like to generate a report on site traffic, pages hit etc. but when I select reports from within FrontPage 2003, it says the server needs to be configured for these reports.
Do you happen to know about this situation?
Best,
Neil Neil Ferree
BioMPI, LLC
http://www.mbiompi.com
LA,CA 90025
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| Jun. 28 2006 at 6:37 AM |
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Hmmm, you had to throw me the curveball on the first question Neil 
I haven't had a chance to dive in on Office Live to date, so I'm not familiar with their setup. Frontpage is simply an authoring tool, so if you were going to get reporting I would assume it would be coming from a dashboard or control panel within the Office Live system.
If you're continuing to have trouble accessing site reporting, I'd probably recommend reaching out to our friends in Redmond to see what their suggestion would be - I can help with the ins and outs of analyzing the data once you've got it, but I can't claim to be an expert on the implementation of all analytics systems.
chuck fuller
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| Jun. 28 2006 at 3:51 PM |
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Doesn't bravenet offer traffic monitoring tools? I have a wedding website (no laughing!  ) and have a bravenet ticker on it and it gives me more data then I'd ever thought I'd want about time of day, repeat visitors vs. new visitors, day of the week, etc. Would that be an option for you outside of MS Live? "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."
paraphrased Henry Ford
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| Jun. 29 2006 at 12:18 AM |
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For stats I would recommend http://www.statcounter.com. It's free, invisible on your website, and will provide more stats than you need. Google Analytics is also a good option but is still in beta.
http://www.pixeltorch.com - Helping small businesses increase sales using the internet
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| Jun. 29 2006 at 11:28 AM |
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Fact is there are innumerable options out there, many free, some inexpensive, some ridiculously expensive - just because you're using a product like Office Live doesn't mean you're tied in to them for reporting. Many sites employ multiple analytics packages to compare trending and reporting - nothing wrong with double-checking the #'s. Regardless, it's going to come down to first figuring out what it is you're looking to accomplish with your site, determining what numbers and metrics are going to tell you whether or not you're successful against those goals, and then finding the package that meets your needs.
So the bottom line is don't dive into a package - figure out what you need, then find the package that fits those needs.
chuck fuller
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| Jun. 30 2006 at 12:49 AM |
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pixeltorch wrote: For stats I would recommend http://www.statcounter.com. It's free, invisible on your website, and will provide more stats than you need. Google Analytics is also a good option but is still in beta.
I have Google Analytics and it's not too bad. But I recommend Sitemeter or Awstats-- they are both better than Statcounter
H. Dean Sachi Studio: Web & Blog Design | Local SEO Strategies| We help businesses explore and harness the new digital goldrush. Get your own Wordpress blog installed onto your domain.
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| Jun. 30 2006 at 3:30 PM |
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We use OfficeLive and have no trouble accessing site reports. Reports are comprehensive and provide useful information (origin of traffic) and statistics. I would advise you to send OfficeLive technical support an Email.
Regards,
Varju Luceno
www.globalofficepartners.com
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