A static site means that once the site is created and uploaded to the hosting server, the pages appear exactly the same for each user and each session. The server takes no action except transferring the page directly to the user’s browser in response to the user’s request.There aren’t any commands embedded in the page which may be executed at the server side.
Inserting the tracking script into a static page is a very simple process and is completely automated by HitLens. You can do it either manually or with the help of HitLens Activation Wizard (which is advised as it ensures the absence of errors and clarity of results).
Preparation
First of all, you need to decide which pages of your site will be tracked. We recommend setting up the tracking for all pages without exclusion. You never know what kind of information needs will emerge in the future. If you fail to include some pages in your tracking scheme now, you may find at some point that you do need to track visitor stats for these pages. While you can activate visitor tracking at any time on a moments notice, you’ll lack the data needed to effectively analyse traffic since these pages have heretofore been inactive. It takes time to build up the data needed for meaningful analysis.
You can automatically insert the tracking code into any page that is HTML-compliant or at least has a closing “</BODY>” tag. (Or a closing “</FRAMESET>” tag for frameset pages. HitLens Activation Wizard searches for this tag on the page and inserts the tracking script directly before it. Manually, you are able to insert the tracking code virtually anyplace in any HTML page.
So, your first step is to decide which pages are to be tracked, and make sure these pages are located in the local copy of the site on your hard drive, so you can upload them later to your hosting server.
Then, you should determine whether you want to use some content groups, and if so, you’ll need to define your groups. Usually, you should group the pages thematically. For instance, assume you have several pages on your site devoted to computer accessories, several other pages devoted to computer services and some pages about your company and contact details. Organizing these themed pages into content groups allows you to easily make conclusions on what is most popular: computer accessories or computer services.
Third, take time to find out which of your pages are responsible for “transaction” handling. A transaction may consist of any action taken by a user on your site: a purchase, a subscription, an order, etc. User logins into accounts can also be considered transactions. To let HitLens know that a transaction has taken place on your site, you should find the page that is shown to the visitor directly after this transaction, and insert the tracking script with transaction details into this page (HitLens Activation Wizard will help you). For instance, when a visitor has subscribed to your newsletter, you show them a page that thanks them for the subscription. When this page is shown to the visitor, it means that the subscription transaction has been successful and HitLens may register it. So the tracking script sends the transaction details to the Datacenter.
Note : transactions are mostly dealt with when you have a dynamic Web site, they are rarely found on sites that are completely static. Nevertheless, such a situation is possible; for instance, when your site deals with only one kind of transaction or when all transactions are of the same amount, and so on. Thus, your thank-you page is static.
When you’re done with the preparations, made sure that all your Web pages ready in your local copy, defined the content groups and know which pages are to be defined as transactions, you may start working – HitLens Activation Wizard does not require any additional preparatory steps.
Step 1. Select the service plan and set up passwords
There are two service plans available – “Power” and “eCommerce“. “Power” means that you will be able to receive all kinds of statistics except those available in two report groups called “eCommerce” and “Campaigns“. These contain important financial information. If your business has to deal with sales and you’re serious about marketing, the Power plan may not be the right choice for you. However, for general optimization and traffic analysis purposes, the “Power” plan is sufficient, for it includes reports about referrers (including the search engines), keywords used to find your site, visitor behavior statistics, demographics, page popularity, etc.
The “eCommerce” plan, apart from that, will let you analyze the commercial effectiveness of your optimization and marketing efforts. As soon as you enable HitLens to collect the data about the transactions taking place on your site, and let it know the amount of each transaction, it can easily calculate your revenue and report to you on the “Return On Investment” index, efficiency of referrers, etc.
On the second step, you set the passwords. Remember that the master password is the primary one: with its help, you will be able to change any HitLens settings and assign / reassign the secondary passwords.
The secondary passwords are the “Guest” and “eCommerce” password. They are used to let any person who has downloaded and installed Web CEO see the statistics for this Web site. That is, if you’re a webmaster at a large company and you have activated the HitLens service, you have the master password and can adjust any settings for this service and even deactivate it, as well as see the reports collected by HitLens.
However, you will probably want to share the statistics reports with those you set up the stats for – the marketing department, CEO, etc. So, you give them these two passwords. The “Guest” password will open for them the access to all reports except the two sections related to the financial information: eCommerce and Campaigns. The eCommerce password supplements the Guest password with the access to these two sections.
So if you want to grant somebody full access to any and all of the reports available in HitLens, give them both passwords.
