Control panels handle many tasks on a daily basis, and are even called the backbone of a website by many people. Most website owners know that a good control panel can simplify the site building and maintenance process, which increases productivity, but one advantageous aspect of a good control panel that is not commonly mentioned is the traffic analysis tools it provides. At first glance, traffic analysis and traffic generation appear to be two completely different subjects. However, the two are very closely related, as the results of traffic generation techniques can be greatly improved by the insight provided by traffic analysis. Since cPanel is the most commonly used control panel, it is only befitting to discuss the traffic analysis tools provided within this popular control panel, and how they can improve traffic generation.
Using Complex traffic Analysis Tools
The cPanel control panel comes with three incredibly useful traffic analysis tools; Webalizer, Awstats and Analog. All of these tools provide a different level of insight and can be used in various situations accordingly. The Analog tool is the hard est to use but provides the most comprehensive overview of website traffic analysis. Analog bears it’s name because it presents information in text format rather than images or graphs. If you can learn how to use Analog, then you won’t have any need for the other two tools provided in cPanel.
Using Basic Traffic Analysis Tools
If you are not interested in surpassing the steep learning curve for Analog, then you may want to try a simpler solution such as Awstats. Awstats is relatively easy to use and lets you schedule comprehensive analytical reports for maximum productivity. This tool is perfect for webmasters that are experimenting with more immediate forms of traffic generation such as social bookmarking. The final tool, Webalizer provides detailed traffic reports on a monthly basis via graphs. Although the reports are infrequent they provide great insight to the long term progress of your website.
Using the Analytical Data to Generate Traffic
Once you have learned how to use the tools mentioned above, you may wonder how you’re going to use the data to generate traffic. The answer is actually quite simple; you are going to remove most of the error from “trial and error!” Virtually all traffic generating techniques require patience, including search engine optimization. The problem is, it can be hard to find out what works and what doesn’t. Which could cause you to waste tie promoting methods that are ineffective. In order to get the best results possible out of your efforts, you’ll need to know how much traffic is coming in and where it is coming from. Once you have this information you can use it to scale up and create a formula that consistently brings your website the desired amount of traffic.
