Let Log File Analysis Be Your Guide
The ultimate goal of every successful online business owner is to extract as much value as possible from their website and other digital assets. However, this result usually isn’t something that happens by accident. In fact, it takes quite a bit of skill, knowledge, and time to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together in just the right way for the desired result to occur.
The most significant tool in demystifying what actions people are doing at your website is your log file. If you are unsure what a log file is, here is a simple explanation. It is a simple file output that originates from the web server. This file contains a record of all requests (or ‘hits’) that get sent to the server.
All data that’s received gets stored anonymously. The data file may include the time and date the request was made, the IP address the query was sent from, the URL or content that was requested, as well as the user-agent, browser type, and device information. These files usually are used for technical site audits and basic troubleshooting. Additionally, these log files are extremely helpful for auditing your web results and fine-tuning your pages to improve your metrics and your results.
Why is it essential to conduct log file analysis? There are a number of reasons. Since all requests to the host server are recorded, you get an extensive overview of precisely what type of activity is taking place on the site. Visits from search engine crawlers, robots, and human visitors are recorded every time they visit a page. For more precise information on website activity, operators can filter the user-agent and client IP range to see grouped actions. Using this information, you can get a better understanding of how your site behaves when crawlers or robots visit.
By analyzing your log file, you can pinpoint if website visitors, crawlers, or robots encountered any “bottlenecks” or “obstacles” on your site. The earlier that you detect these barriers in your website navigation, the better! You always want to provide a stellar user experience, so being proactive about fixing potential leaks on your sales and marketing funnel, the better.
If you notice low to no search engine crawlers on your website, this could signify a more significant issue that’s holding your site back from regular crawl activity. Low crawl activity could indicate that your site has thin or low-quality content, poor site speed and/or performance, lack of a Secure Transport Layer (TLS/SSL) connection, duplicate content, or a temporary or permanent penalty.
Another factor to consider is your crawl budget. If you aren’t familiar with what a crawl budget is, here is a brief explanation and some information on how this budget is calculated.
The first thing to recognize is that your crawl budget shouldn’t be confused with your ‘crawl rate.’ They are not one in the same. Your crawl rate refers to the speed that search engines request your pages. Whereas your ‘crawl budget’ refers to the maximum number of pages or documents a search engine crawls when it visits your site.
It’s believed that the crawl budget/allocation is determined based on domain authority. In days past, domain authority was decided by page rank or PR, as part of Google’s ranking algorithm. The higher the site PR, the more crawler activity the site received, so more pages, links, and URL’s were crawled regularly. In many cases, this meant that having a link – preferably one that utilized a keyword rich anchor text – could be the difference between getting first page rankings and not getting found in results at all. Another tactic was to amass many links from sites with lower PR to stimulate crawl activity and influence search engine results.
It’s worth noting that having a sizeable crawl budget should be treated with respect. If possible, you want to eliminate the need for valuable search engines crawlers to traverse thousands of irrelevant, links, especially if they lead to thin, outdated, or absent resources. By keeping your website and funnel content tight and error-free, you help build more authority and trust in your preferred niche. You’re also taking proactive action to prevent penalties or other ranking infractions that can negatively affect your website rankings, as well as free organic website traffic to your site.
Many people find it difficult to decipher the data that raw log files contain, so this is a time when using an internal statistics program is helpful for sorting and identifying areas in your funnel that can be improved for better results. For instance, if your Internal stat program shows that 50% of website visitors on your checkout page are clicking on a different link than the “pay now” button, this is enough evidence to warrant further investigation and the removal of the non-relevant link which blew out your sales funnel in one swoop! Once this leak is “fixed” so to speak – you can test and observe to ensure that the funnel is working as it’s expected.
You can also use a tool like Google Analytics and Google’s Webmaster Tools for further insights into the behavior and performance of your website as well. Setting these tools up takes some time and a bit of technical savviness, but once established, they offer a wealth of information about the activities, click paths, demographics, conversions, keyword rankings, and even live time website traffic data! Further, they collect log file information including where the visitor was referred from, so you can track the number of website visitors you get from social platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter – just to name a few.
The devil is always in the details, so making sure that you get everything set up right in the first place is helpful in laying a solid foundation for online success. While this can be a painstaking process, having access to all of this beneficial information gives you a competitive edge in improving your website pages and sales funnels for more conversions and revenue!
I’m a Digital Marketer & Freelance Writer with a penchant for all things forward-thinking and positive. I’m a fan of abundance and progress.
