Why You Should Use Analytics and What Metrics are Important

In terms of web sites, an overhwhelming amount of small business owners feel that ‘if you build it, they will come’. But is that really the case? How can you be certain? For this to work you need some kind of feedback or tracking system.

The most effective choice is really a web analytics program. It can gather and organise information about visitors who land on your web site, so you’ll be able to commence studying about them. Then you’ll begin to understand exactly where people are coming from, how they interact with your site, and – and to an extent – who those visitors are.

Don’t analyse the wrong measurements

The word ‘hits’ is frequently utilized to describe site traffic. But we have to quit making use of it. It’s an ambiguous label.

A hit literally meant any request a client created to an internet server. Perhaps that was useful 15 years ago, but nowadays, a single net page can generate hundreds of hits (there’s a separate hit for each individual image, and for other elements).

So ‘hits’ has no clear definition, so therefore doesn’t allow us to gather a further understanding of what our traffic is doing.

Some archaic analysers come as normal with web hosting. These are the original traffic analysis tools which create raw, basic information. They often don’t even differentiate in between actual people visiting your website as well as the ‘robots’ from search engines which scan your website. It is confusing and misleading. Don’t bother.

What should you be measuring?

Use a decent web analytics package instead such as Google Analytics or Clicky. There are lots of quality data you’ll be able to measure on your site.

Visitors

A visitor is generally calculated from the time a personal computer accesses your site until when they leave. If that same visitor then returns, they’ll be recorded again within the total visits figure.

Unique Visitors

This really is exactly the same as visitors, except it filters out repeat visits by the same individual.

Page views and actions

A page view will be the metric utilized to track when a single page of your website loads. But actions measure issues that occur within a page – like playing a video, liking a post on Facebook or making a comment.

Referrers

A huge volume of traffic come from websites that link to them. These sites are referred to as referrers, and referrer data can let you know which web sites are most valuable for sending you traffic.

Searches

Search engines like Google will send you lots of traffic too, and you can see which keywords people are utilizing to find your website.

Geography

Realizing where in the globe your visitors are coming from can be eye-opening. Perhaps you’re acquiring a visitors surge from a brand new part with the globe and with all the right web analytics you are able to decide why it is happening and how you can capitalise on it further.

Goals

Numerous website owners want to know when visitors complete a particular action. For instance, you’ll be able to set up your web analytics package to register when someone makes a purchase from your internet shop, and to record just how much the buy was worth.

Campaigns

If you are operating a paid ad campaign, campaign tracking will show you what takes place from the visitors you receive from every different advert. And that lets you see which ads are sending you most new customers.

Advanced filtering

Also known as segmentation, this lets you split your visitors into groups. You are able to filter by visitor location, whether or not they’re using a mobile phone, how they discovered your website … almost anything you are able to think of.

Social media

If individuals are talking about your company on social media, do not you want to know what they’re saying? Some tools can monitor conversations on social networks like Twitter, and compile statistics about what folks are saying.

Internet analytics can appear overwhelming at very first. The best thing you can do would be to get your website set up with some sort of web analytics then begin checking your numbers daily.

You will soon get the hang of how you can view, analyse and drill deep into your information in order to improve your site and its site visitor levels.

Author bio: Guest Post written by Jonathan Moss – an online marketeer at Creative Aspects, a Web Design Agency in Harrogate.