So you want to monitor your own website traffic, or keep an eye on competitors' websites. Whether you're trying to reach new fans or subscribers, or you're just curious about the popularity of your content, there are many tools available to help you. There are a number of methods you can use from your own site, although some only give approximate results and not exact numbers. The other methods are more technical, and may go beyond your needs. Whatever your professional needs, knowing how to monitor your own and competitors' website traffic can help ensure the success of your business.
Step
Method 1 of 3: Monitoring Traffic from Your Own Site
Step 1. Access your website statistics
If you use a platform like WordPress, site statistics can be easily accessed. This feature is built into the WordPress web platform so that users can easily track and maintain the site, and display an accurate picture of site traffic.
- If you're on WordPress, click Dashboard at the top left of the page. Below that, you'll see several categories.
- Click My Blogs. Next to the highlighted main blog, you will see a small icon with a graph labeled Stats. Open to view the site's overall traffic.
Step 2. Check the comment count of the blog post
One easy and free way to find out the approximate number of visitors to your site is to check how many people have left comments. Obviously not all site visitors will leave comments. However, on average, about one in 200 readers leave a comment, and knowing these statistics can help you estimate your traffic broadly.
- Go to the " comments " segment or comments on the site.
- If the page does not include a number of comments, calculate it manually.
- Multiply the number of comments by 200 to find the approximate average visitor to your page.
- Remember, this method is not 100 percent accurate. This method only provides a rough estimate, based on an average percentage.
Step 3. Go to the video segment of the page
If you've pasted YouTube or Vimeo on your site, all you have to do is go to the video and click on it. Both YouTube and Vimeo will show the number of views the video received, but only if the video was shared publicly. Otherwise you won't be able to see the amount of traffic on the related site..
- Look at the bottom right side under the video screen, and you will see the numbers. This number shows how many visitors watched your video.
- Keep in mind that the number of visitors recorded does not reflect the actual number of viewers. This figure includes people who didn't watch the video to the end, but will help you get an outline of web traffic.
Method 2 of 3: Monitoring Traffic Using Add-ons and Sites
Step 1. Use Google Analytics
Google Analytics is one of the most popular web monitoring tools today. This app lets you track the route each visitor takes to your site, which you can use to determine how to grow your site's reach.
- Google Analytics has both free and paid formats.
- If you have signed up for Google Analytics, you will receive a unique tracking code. Enter the associated code into the page, and Google will monitor when your site was visited, who visited, and how they found your site.
- Don't forget to filter your own site visits from traffic monitoring. You will often visit the site yourself, and if you don't filter it out of the total site visits, the results will be wrong.
- You also need to filter out junk traffic, which also interferes with the accuracy of monitoring results.
Step 2. Try Alexa
Alexa is a web information company that provides you with detailed statistics on your site. You can monitor visits, popularity rankings, reached demographics, web speed, and so on. Alexa is not free, but its service allows you to get detailed statistics quickly and easily. There are several different service plans, depending on your budget and business needs.
- Alexa can be used to monitor your site and competitors.
- Alexa can provide you with recommendations depending on your traffic history and statistics. these recommendations can help you increase your site's reach and traffic levels.
Step 3. Monitor with Compete
Compete is similar to Alexa. Compete helps you monitor website traffic from domestic visitors. The app also offers a toolbar so you can easily access site statistics at any time.
Compete is not free, but the site offers a number of subscription plans. Each plan provides specific features designed to assist with all kinds of reporting
Method 3 of 3: Monitoring Competitor Websites
Step 1. Identify competitors
Monitoring your own site is important, but if you want to improve your website, keep an eye on your competitors' traffic as well. Knowing what different things your competitors are doing on their sites, and how to reach an audience, can help you make decisions about your website later on.
- Look for the top keywords in various search engines. This helps give you a broad understanding of which sites your audience is likely to also visit.
- The top ten sites are your biggest competitors.
Step 2. Evaluate competitor sites
If your competitors are getting more visitors, this may be due to better design, or to optimize their search engines more effectively. Compare your site to the competition, and learn what it can do to capitalize on some of its success.
Step 3. Use a web traffic monitoring tool
Some analytics sites that you can use to check your own site's traffic can also be used to monitor competitor sites. Compare reviews on each monitoring tool, and choose the one that provides the most accurate and high-quality service.
