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Cookies: How to Improve Your Website AND Learn From Your VisitorsQuestion: How can you improve your visitors' experience of your
website AND at the same time learn how to improve
your website (or learn how to increase sales)?
Answer: cookies
Cookies? Yes. Let me explain...
=> COOKIES EXPLAINED
A "cookie" is simply a small piece of text information which a
web server stores temporarily with your web visitor's browser.
(Note: cookies are *not* programs.) This means your visitor's
browser remembers some specific information which the web server
can later retrieve.
So cookies simply allow your site to store information on your
visitor's computer for later retrieval.
A basic example of a cookie in action can be found here
- http://members.rediff.com/lc/cookies.htm
Another example is the "online shopping mall" that uses cookies
to add items to a user's "shopping cart" as they browse. And I
use cookies on my own website to make sure a pop-up window loads
ONCE ONLY ( http://www.shoptour.co.uk/webmaster.shtml ).
=> WHY YOUR WEBSITE SHOULD USE COOKIES
Basically, cookies allow you to improve a site visitor's
experience of your website. I've listed a few examples to show
how this can be achieved:
* Cookies can store visitor preferences. This means you can
present customised information to your visitor, as per their
own requirements. (This is how portal sites like MSN work.);
* Cookies can pre-fill form fields for your visitor.
* Cookies can automatically login visitors to your site
* Cookies can provide visitor statistics and therefore help you
understand your visitor's needs. Cookies can provide site
metrics like unique visitors, average number of page-views,
percentage of repeat visitors, et cetera. And cookie-generated
statistics are much more accurate than using log files.
(Do remember though, that people sometimes share computers; some
browsers are set to reject cookies; AN
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