Analytics

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Analytics are probably one of, if not, the most important aspects you need to consider for your website. Analytics refers to software or services which captures a record of the traffic coming and going from your website. There are free and paid-for analytics systems. There are dedicated services designed to help you get a handle on these important numbers.

These systems are where you will learn how many unique visitors came to your site. You’ll also find the total number of visits those unique visitors, and returning visitors accumulated. You’ll see page views, time on site, paths through your site and more. Some systems show you site overlays to understand what links users clicked on while on your site. Almost all systems will tell you which site the users came to you from and whether this was a search engine or other type of website. Most will also get granular enough to help you understand which individual keywords users entered at a search engine to end up on your site.

The data your analytics package shares with you will enable you to make the important business decisions you need to make to add value on your website. By tracking user behavior, you can adjust your site design and layout to better showcase your content and increase conversions.

As mentioned, there are free systems and paid-for systems. Larger websites often benefit from the more robust systems, while smaller websites can usually manage with free analytics systems. While this not a hard and fast rule, it generally holds true. Be sure to balance the data and ability to manipulate that data against potential costs for data collection.

Here’s a starter list of some commonly referenced analytics systems:

www.awstats.net
www.clicktale.com
www.coremetrics.com
www.excellentanalytics.com
www.getclicky.com
www.goingup.com
www.googleanalytics.com
www.iwebtrack.com
www.lyris.com
www.omniture.com
www.onestat.com
www.openwebanalytics.com
www.piwik.org
www.sas.com
www.truviso.com
www.webtrends.com
www.wordstream.com

There is even a web analytics association to help get you certified as a web analyst.