How to Track the Amount of Internet Traffic

Level of difficulty: Easy

It is always important to track your website traffic. By doing so, you are able to see how many times people visit your site and how many new visitors arrive on an everyday basis. Tracking Internet traffic is usually used to be able to gauge the target audience and their patronage so that you will be able to market your website properly.

Materials Needed:
- Computer
- Internet Connection
- Google Analytics
Step 1
Go to the Login page of Google Analytics. Google Analytics is an online application that helps you keep track and analyze the traffic that comes to your site. It also helps in streamlining your site to help increase marketability.
Step 2
Create a Google account with a username and password. It is advisable to create an alphanumeric password, meaning it contains both letter and symbols, to help prevent password theft.
Step 3
Go to Sign up.
Step 4
On the sign up page, you have to provide the website URL to be analyzed. Only one field is provided in the meantime. Google Analytics has the ability to track down more than one website, but this option to add more websites will be provided only when the user is done with the initial sign-up.
Step 5
Fill in all the other information in the other fields. Click on 'continue'.
Step 6
This will bring you to the 'New Account Signup' page. Fill in the necessary fields and click on 'continue'. Read the Terms and Agreement page and accept the user agreement.
Step 7
You will see a box containing scripts. On top of this box are the instructions, 'Copy the following code block into every Web page you want to track immediately before the </body> tag'. Follow the instructions and paste the contents of the box to your site. Press 'continue' when you are back on the Google Analytics page.
Step 8
This will bring you to your Google Analytics account homepage. Here, you will see details of the website you want to track. These include how many hits, the average time visitors spend on your website, bounce rate, etc. There is also the 'add new profile' button. You can add the other websites that you would want Google Analytics to track and monitor.
Step 9
Check your account/s regularly to keep track of visitor traffic. This will help you in making modifications to your site with the aim of increasing hits and duration of stay. This will hopefully help in increasing marketability and attracting sponsors to your website.
Step 10
There are also software tools designed to automatically track the amount of your site's Internet traffic. This can be installed on your site using your Web server's Cpanel or FTP services. Just carefully study the third-party website traffic tracker application before you install it on your site. Once you've identified the most appropriate website traffic tracker program for your site, carefully read the installation guidelines since the necessary steps to take in order to install these third-party applications may be specific to each Web server or the application itself.