website stats analysis

[Michele Hampshire]

Hello, I'd like to hear from people who are responsible for analyzing
their website statistics.  In using WebTrends, I find very little useful
information other than the information provided for "visitors." Those
numbers tells me how many unique IP addresses hit our site during each
month and how many of those are repeat visitors in each monthly
reporting period.   

I can't, however, see the value in the numbers for "page views,"
"visits," and "hits," mostly because there is no way to eliminate staff
and public computers. And anyway, what is a "visit?" WebTrends says it's
all activity for one user.  So when "average visits per day" is 300,
what does that mean??? 

Please tell me about the website analysis products you use and what
useful numbers you glean.  

Best,
Michele Hampshire
Web Librarian: Mill Valley Public Library
Marin County, California
http://millvalleylibrary.org
415-389-4292 x107