Google Analytics

Google analytics is a free stat counter service provided by of course, Google.

Stat Counter

This is another free web stat counter that I personally use and find very good, can hold 500 entries at the free level, for any more you need to upgrade.

If you dont like the one your web host offers or those two there is always the option of looking at others, but these should do quite well. Something to keep in mind is that each service may calculate their statistics in different ways, for instance Google Analytics seems to show less statistics than my web hosting service’s stat counter. Understanding your service’s features and how they check visits can help you understand your results. Some statistics you may run into:

Bounce Rate – This shows the percentage of people that visited your first page and left without going any further.
Referrals – These are the sites that brought you the visit, lack of one may mean they typed in your URL directly. Search engine means that a visitor found you through a search engine, possibly even show you the keyword they used in finding you.
Entry Page – The page the visitor entered onto.
Geography/Map – Will show where the people visited from.
Browsers/OS – Shows the browser the visitor used and the Operating System they were on.
Unique visitor – This is tricky, could be absolutely unique or unique for the day or even unique just for a couple of hours, depending on the service and how it is calculated.
Returning visitor – Shows the amount of visitors that were coming back again.
Pageviews – Shows how many pages were viewed, since visitors may visit more than one page this should never be smaller than the visit count.

What can I do with this information? Once you have this information you can use it to determine who you are reaching most and who is bringing you the traffic, then you can focus in on what you need to change or even enhance what you already have.