By
now you're keying all your links and emails right? Right?
Sincerely folks,
Get in the habit of keying your links and
develop a system that works for you!
If
you missed last week you can still read it at: http://linkpaks.com/Tips-Tools/V1.1_Tracking_Your_Links.php?V1.2
"I
made an insightful and cool discovery this
week though it's a little obvious in hindsight"
I've
been rearranging my site to try and keep up where people are taking
it.
I detest duplicate files so I caused many 404 errors as I deleted
old files and directories.
HTTP error
number: 404 = page not found
What the server shows when it can't find a
web page to show.
THE
PROBLEM:
A lot of this (NOW 404) traffic came from search engines
which still pointed to old directories and filenames!
THE
SOLUTION:
A custom 404 page!
Simply create a html file as your 404 page.
Tell your sites server to use it.
For mine (on a UNIX host) I had to ad this line to my .htaccess file:
ErrorDocument 404 http://linkpaks.com/LinkRot.php
Then
whenever a user went to a non existent page
they got my custom page.
Notice I had named my page LinkRot for what it solved.
I also cheerful greeted them with
" The page your looking for seems to be missing in action".
I thought it was cute.
I
then put in site search box and link charts to popular pages.
I was feeling good about this point!
LinkRot
alone became 20% of my sites traffic! WOW!
I then noticed that about 80% left the page and site immediately!
I didn't like this at all {I don't do rejection
well}
and
just what was the problem anyway?
lets see, from the users point of view;
I'm in LinkRot, lost in action with lots of links
starring me in the face!
Oh!
Renamed
the file to LinkFinder
Changed
the greeting to
"The Page your looking for has been moved, It is listed below"
LinkFinder still getting 18% of the site traffic,
but only 30% are clicking away!
I also
have seen the average number of
pageviews per visit has gone up 40%
and average page AND Visit duration both up ~20%
These are probably relate.
You
can view the page here:
http://linkpaks.com/LinkFinder.php?V1.2
The
only differences is the changes I described above and the addition
of banners exchanges to the bottom of the LinkFinder page. (Builds
those Exchange points)
It
seems my audience liked easy
direction better than cute, this time!
The
moral of this story is now obvious to me.
Remember to design from the users view not mine!
My ego isn't happy but my customers are!!
Tools
use to figgur' this out:
Both Free! Both Quick! Both Useful!
-->SiteGauge
-Detailed statistics and rankings on pageviews
-Very good week long search engine stats!
-Can trace the paths that folks take though your site. Http://www.sitegauge.com
-->SiteMeter
Excellent
statistics, with graphs on:
-Entry and Exit pages Pages to and from your site
-Visit times and duration
-Counts visitors as well as pageviews
-Privacy well handled!
http://sm3.sitemeter.com/
I use both of them on almost every page on my sites.
They are both near real time and helpful tools!
Zaako
PS
"A Rose by any other name would still smell as sweet"
Ah!! There's the rub, no smell over the net (with rare exceptions).
*******************************************************
-= Zaako weaves his piece of the web =-
-= at
Linkpaks.com =-
Your Links to a fun and profitable ELife http://www.linkpaks.com/?V1.2
Got a tip to share? Write
Me ******************************************************
V1.2 (C)2000 Linkpaks.
Freely redistributable in whole only.
