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The Importance of Web Analytics

Do you know what is happening with your site? Are you sure? There is a gold mine of information just beneath the surface of your site; make sure you are taking advantage of it.

You do not have to guess about the traffic your site is generating. Your web server log stores an amazing amount of information. Understanding how visitors are using your site is vital information that could quite literally make the difference between your site succeeding and failing. Effective web analytics provides you with the tools necessary to create and understand useful reports about your site.

Briefly, web analytics means marketing your site. Web analytics tell you who your visitors are, how they are using your site, and how they are leaving your site. More importantly, you can uncover valuable insights about why visitors to your site are doing what they do.
Here are some tips on starting or improving your web analytics efforts.

Collect the Right Data
The first step in successful web analytics is getting a program that will collect the data you want and translate it into a format you can understand. There is a lot of valuable information you can collect. The following table shows some of the most important statistics to measure, and how they can help you.

Visitors Tells you the number of visitors to your site. Your site may have a fantastic design but if nobody is coming to it, it will not succeed.
Conversions Depending on your business, conversion can have many meanings. A conversion could be a product purchase, the completion of a contact form, downloading a free trial, and much more. This directly reflects your site’s call to action. A site with many visitors and a low conversion rate is not maximizing its full potential.
Most Popular Pages on Your Site What content on your web site is generating the most views? If your most popular page is for a product that isn’t your primary focus, your market may have changed and it may be time to emphasize a new product line.
Top Referrals How are most visitors finding your site? This can be anything from a search engine to a forum, paid advertisement, or e-mail campaign. This can show you which of your marketing campaigns are most successful and where you may want to concentrate your time and efforts.
Top Keywords What keywords are visitors using to find your site? What keywords do visitors use that convert into conversions? Sometimes the most informative keywords are the ones you do not see. For example, if you handmade candles but you have no visits to your site for the keywords “handmade candles” your site may be crying out for some keyword optimization.
Average Visit Time and Pages (Engagement) These statistics tell you how long someone stays on your site once they arrive and how many pages they visit. Pay attention to how engagement levels relate to traffic sources such as your top keywords and referrers.
Bounce Rate This is the exact opposite of the previous statistic. This reflects the visitors that leave your site almost as soon as they arrive. This will happen for every site. However, if you have a bounce rate above 50% your site may be optimized for the wrong keywords, you may be targeting the wrong demographic, or may just be that your home page is confusing.
Geographic and Language Settings This shows you where in the world your visitors are coming from and what their primary language is. While this has obvious benefits for international businesses, local businesses may benefit as well. For example, if you notice a large percentage of visitors to your site have their language set to Spanish but you only offer an English version, you may consider creating a Spanish version of your site.


Take Action
The most important part of web analytics is developing a plan to improve your site.

Your site will only benefit you if you act on what you learn. Use your web analytics to custom tailor your site to your target audience. For example, if you discover a high percentage of visitors enter your site through an unexpected page consider adding more links to other pages or documents on your site from that page. On the other hand, if you see most people come to your home site and leave right away, consider putting together some focus groups together to figure out why.

Remain Committed
Once you have made a change, track it, and see what affect it has on your web traffic. Web analytics is not a one-time procedure. It is a process that requires dedication and consistency to succeed.

Fortunately, any organization with enough commitment and attention will be successful in their use of web analytics.

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