Everything You Need to Know About Web Analytics
5 min readIf you are an e-commerce owner, the chances are that you have come across the term ‘web analytics’ several times. But you have no idea how it works and why it is vital for the growth of your website.
Read here for everything you need to know about web analytics and how they can transform your site for the better.
What Is Web Analytics?
Understanding web analytics meaning is the first step towards incorporating this strategy in website development.
Web analytics entails the collection and evaluation of website data. It allows you to analyze what is happening on your site from the time users visit it until the moment they leave.
The process gives you insights into what visitors love doing while on your site, the kind of content they like, and why they chose to leave. With such information at hand, you can establish what areas of your website are working and which ones need improvement.
With the right web analytics tools, you can collect limitless information about how consumers interact with your site.
You can track the total number of visitors within a particular period and the areas they spend most of their time. If there are any backlinks, you will see which ones brought them to your website.
Why Is Website Analytics Important?
Website analytics is a powerful tool in boosting your website performance.
By tracking how consumers interact with your content, you will be better positioned to pinpoint which areas of your website need improvement. In return, this helps you to optimize the performance of your site.
Website analytics helps you improve website user experience by tailoring your site to meet the visitors’ needs. Let’s look at some benefits of web analytics.
1. Identify Where Your Website Visitors Are Coming From
You can track the geographical composition of your site visitors. This strategy helps you to identify your quality leads when creating targeted campaigns so you can invest your marketing budget and time in them.
2. Track the Efficiency of Specific Marketing Campaigns
Increased website traffic is primarily a result of a successful marketing campaign. Perhaps, you have been running an email marketing campaign, and at the same time, you have a social media influencer marketing campaign going on.
The analytics tools will help you identify which of the two marketing activities brings more traffic and quality leads. You can therefore invest more in the most efficient.
3. Understand What Visitors Need
Besides identifying the information of the site visitors based on IP addresses, you will understand their precise needs. Marketing is challenging when you don’t know the kind of content your audience love.
Perhaps, you have been spending a lot of time crafting killer blogs and changing your website aesthetics. But it turns out your audience is only interested in better communication and the feeling of being appreciated.
By tracking their reasons for leaving your website sooner, you will know what is missing and what to do to reduce the churn rate.
4. Minimize Bounce Rate
Web analytics allows you to track the amount of time visitors spend on your website. If they leave immediately after getting in, that is referred to as a bounce.
If you register a high bounce rate, the chances are that your site has usability issues. It could be the site has a low loading speed, is hard to navigate, has poor readability, or offers no value. Web analytics will help you identify the issues so that you can correct them sooner.
5. Track Retained Visitors
Every website owner hopes to see new site visitors every day. The returning visitors are also equally valuable and tell you a lot about your website performance.
If you have more people coming over and over, it means you have something valuable that they cannot find from competitors. If the opposite happens, it means that your website is not as engaging as it should. Such web analytics facts will help you identify the areas of improvement.
Do You Need Web Analytics Tools?
Thanks to technological advancements, you can now track users’ interaction with your website automatically. You no longer have to go the tedious and time-consuming manual way to understand visitors’ needs and if they are satisfied with your website.
You have a range of analytics tools at your disposal. You can select the most suitable depending on the metrics you wish to track. If you want to measure the bounce rate, there is a tool specifically for that. The same applies if you want to track the source of traffic.
Web analytic tools are a must-have for any website owner, but a lot comes into play when selecting the best.
Some web analytics tools include:
- GoatCounter
- Clicky
- IBM digital analytics
- StatCounter
It would be best if you also incorporated digital experience analytics. It aims to give you an overview of how customers interact with your site and if they have a pleasant experience. With practical solutions such as Decibel, you can track, quantify and enhance visitors’ experience on your site, thus improve conversion.
Key Web Analytics Facts to Note
There is a lot of misleading information about web analytics out there. Check out these facts about web analytics to help you stay on the right page.
- Google Analytics is a form of web analytics
- Web data is different from web analytics information
- Sometimes, traffic is not alone to establish the effectiveness of a marketing campaign
- You should set an objective before deciding on the right analytics tool
Many individuals run their sites without tracking the essential metrics. But with a ton of tools at your disposal, you have no excuse for not using them. Checking the traffic alone is not enough to establish how well your website is doing.
Congratulations! You Can Now Boost Your Website Performance With Web Analytics
At this point, you have a clear understanding of web analytics and why you need them. Tracking website metrics with web analytics information gives you a competitive advantage.
You will be better positioned to transform your website to meet visitors’ needs, thus reducing the bounce rate. You will also have a clue about which marketing plan is working best for your business so you can pay more attention to it.
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