HIT or MISS – Do you know your statistics

Do you know your statistics? If someone asked you today how your website is doing, could you give an informed, statistical answer—or even just a broad, general statement? Most websites come with tons of statistics, and you could easily spend hours analyzing them. But what are the important statistics, and what should you focus on?

The Myth of Website “Hits”

One of the largest misnomers that exists today among webmasters, owners, and advertisers is the classic “hits” statistic. It is often used very misleadingly to describe website visitation.

What Exactly Is a Hit?

A “hit” is a retrieval of any item—like a page or a graphic—from a web server. For example, when a visitor views one web page with six graphics, that’s seven hits: one for the page itself and six for the graphics. Hits never clearly indicate web traffic.

In other words, hits are based on how many times a graphic, audio, video, or document is accessed. A website owner may notice that the new photo gallery added to his/her site increased the “hits” tenfold. “Wow,” they think, “I must be getting ten times more traffic!” Unfortunately, that’s NOT true. It just means the pages now have more graphics, driving up the misleading “hits” number.

Hits Have No Real Correlation With Website Results

Despite what your webmaster, a radio station selling advertising, or even a large business may tell you—hits are not an accurate measure of success.

My hairdresser, “Bubba,” gave me a great analogy: hits are like counting how many hairs he cuts daily, not how many heads. Saying you cut 10,000 hairs sounds impressive—but it’s the number of paying customers that matters. I still cringe when someone tells me their website is doing great based on hits!

Real Statistics You Should Focus On

Let’s move past hits and focus on real, valuable statistics:

• Website Sessions
• Unique Visitors
• Number of Visits
• Number of Pages Viewed
• Website Conversions
• Visit Duration
• Frequently Viewed Pages
• Referring Search Engines
• Referring Websites
• Key Phrases & Words

Website Session

A session is the time between a visitor arriving and leaving your site. Session parameters vary slightly between stat packages, but they generally measure one full visit cycle.

Unique Visitor

A “Unique Visitor” is the most important metric. Website owners care about visitors because visitors drive purchases, service inquiries, prospecting, and brand engagement. Your stats will show you hourly, daily, weekly, and yearly unique visitor counts—your real bottom line.

Number of Visits

Visits track how many sessions happen, regardless of whether they come from new or repeat visitors. Comparing visits and unique visitors tells you whether people return or if you struggle to retain interest.

Number of Pages Viewed

Pages viewed show how much visitors engage with your content. Every click to a new page records a view. A high number of viewed pages usually means fresh, interesting, and well-structured content.

Website Conversions

A “conversion” is when a visitor takes an action you designed your website to encourage: a purchase, inquiry form, email subscription, or lead submission. Define your conversion goals clearly during the design phase and measure against them.

Visit Duration

Visit duration tells you how long people stay. Good websites usually see visitors staying 2-5 minutes or longer. If your visit duration mostly falls in the 0–30 second range, something is wrong—likely outdated content or confusing navigation.

Frequently Viewed Pages

This statistic tells you what specific pages attract the most traffic and which ones visitors ignore. Focus on your key conversion pages. Entry and exit page stats also reveal where you attract visitors—and where you might lose them.

Referring Search Engines

Referrals from search engines show how well you attract organic traffic. Knowing which search engines send you visitors helps you fine-tune your SEO efforts and advertising spend.

Referring Websites

Referrals from other websites are like “word of mouth” online. They show which external links successfully send people to your site. This insight helps you measure the success of advertising campaigns and link-building strategies.

Key Phrases & Words

Understand which search terms lead visitors to your website. Add obvious keywords to your meta tags and page titles. If you’re missing out on obvious keywords, work with your webmaster to optimize them.

Take Control of Your Website Statistics

Learning how to read and interpret your website statistics takes time. But if you work with a good web company for hosting and management, they should help you review these stats regularly.

Besides standard hosting stats packages, top search engines offer “web analytics” tools. Statistics reinforce your website investment, identify real results, and guide future improvements. Knowing your current site’s results makes you much smarter about designing your next site.

Conclusion: Invest Time in Understanding Your Stats

Take the time to understand your website statistics. It will be time well-invested!