It was found out, that many experts in marketing are not able to use counters of statistics and services of web analytics which are available on the majority of corporate sites.
The main error consists that they pay superfluous attention to formal data which have no practical value. Instead of the tool for decision-making site audit turns to gathering "powerful", but senseless data “for the reporting”.1. Visitings (variants of names: the Traffic, Visits, Visitors). Describes number of visits on a site during a certain time interval. It is used as the characteristic of popularity/popularity of a site: it is more traffic — the site is better. Why happens useless? The number of visits is equated to quality. Traffic sources, depth of visiting of a site, an indicator of converting of visitors in clients are lost sight.
2. Time for a site. It is used as the characteristic of interest to a site: it is more than minutes - the site is more interesting. Why happens useless? This indicator matters only for substantial projects (for example, news sites). For corporate sites, Internet shops important not time increase (it can be small), and converting.
3. Exit pages. Pages from which more often visitors leave from a site. Why happens useless? In a reality on the big site it is difficult to reveal the obvious anti-leader as the disorder of variants of pages of an exit is very great. Also this indicator says nothing about the exit reasons that is more important.
4. Number of transitions. Volume of the traffic from a concrete source (a banner, a site, the contextual announcement). It is used for an estimation of utility of a source and decision-making on advertising. Why happens useless? Quality and traffic converting is not considered. The link on page of a large portal will give more visits, than from pages of a small profile site. However last can give more than interested clients.
5. Average indexes and percent. Favourite products of statisticans — average indexes on a site and growth in percentage. Examples: average time for a site, an average of visitings in month, traffic growth on 11% etc. With their help dynamics of activity on a site is traced. Why happens useless? “The average temperature on hospital” helps some experts in marketing to embellish a real state of affairs. An example: growth of average time on a site on 25% can be obliged to simple growth of the "garbage" traffic, instead of improvement of quality of using by a site.
6. Relations. Other popular way to show dynamics and to hide a real state of affairs with the help of "the objective statistics”. An example: the traffic relation in March 2009 by March 2008 makes 2.5. Why happens useless? Also quality of changes is not considered. Besides, relations deform a real situation in absolute numbers.