Article / Definition: Visitor Tracking

Visitor tracking is the process of attempting to determine what sites refer high-quality site visitors e.g. those that convert. Ability to track visitor referrals is vital in several regards:

• You can track the effectiveness of your site marketing campaigns in the free search engines. For example, did recent site tweaks for a specific search engine result in more traffic and/or a higher rate of conversion?
• If you are using "pay-per-click" or other types of paid search engines or directories, are you converting enough referrals from each paid engine to warrant continued use of it?
• Are particular sources yielding more qualified visitors and conversions? If so, you might focus your site marketing more on these sources, and less on others.
• Are the referrals from a specific advertising or email campaign? Did they result in more conversions than from other sources?

Visitor tracking can usually only be accomplished by designing special site entry pages (not always effective for the free search engines), or by using a third party tracking service (usually LOTS of useful information).