Analyze This: Web Analytics

Were you aware that there is a science to your website? In this article, we will break down the basics of analytics so you can begin better understanding how to use quantitative data as an asset for your business.

What's web analytics? Web analytics is the measurement of a website's traffic and its user's actions. This means looking at which pages people are visiting, how they're finding the site, what device they're using, and even what country they're accessing it from. Understanding these statistics tells us a lot about our users and how we can tailor our content to suit their needs more closely.

How to use the data The first step is to understand the numbers. A good place to start is by tracking login activity. Depending on your website, this may be easy or complex, but adding a registration form will help create an active login. Next, you should be able to see which pages of the site are most-visited and what time of day they're visited. You can also track where users leave your site and see where clicks are coming from, such as search engines and social media sites like Facebook.

Using your traffic data, you can then make changes to your site to improve user experience. You can analyze your recent blog posts and see which ones are most successful or popular. Is there a certain time of day you should post? What kind of content is trending now? These answers are all valuable insight into how you can maximize both your online presence and sales.

The important points to keep in mind are the core questions of who, what, where, and when. It may seem basic, but understanding what your site has seen in the past is the first step to making smarter decisions about how you can move forward.

The science of web analytics is coming into play more and more in today's technology-driven society. If you know how to use analytics for your business, you'll have a huge competitive advantage over others who are less savvy.

Sources: Web Analytics: Who, What, Where, and When All Count (http://www.webpronews.com/analytics-who-what-where-and-when-all-count/)

Web Analytics: Data Analytics  (http://searchcio.techtarget.com/feature/Web-Analytics-Data-Analytics)

One of the most interesting, yet still underused, tools in website analytics is Google Analytics. If you're a regular reader of this blog then you'll know that I am a big G.A. user but even I have been stumbling over the basic concepts and terminology for years now as some of the things I use it for are either not listed or just not easy to find out how to do.

Conclusion

It's been a long time since I started blogging and through this journey I really feel that it's growing up as a tool, especially after Google Analytics came out. It's amazing how much traffic you can get with tracking where how often and on what type of device. When I started my blog, my goal was to make it a space for me to write about any topic I wanted, so the analytics are simply there to show me if that was achieved or not.

Sources: Tracking a Blogger’s Success (http://bloggingtools.com/tracking-bloggers-success/) Tracking a Blogger’s Success (http://www.webopedia.