When it comes to online marketing - a business needs to collect data regarding current activities, outcomes, and effects of policies and plans, among other things. This is where web analytics comes in.
Web analytics is used to assess how well investments in online advertising, consumers, and corporate profitability are doing. Web analytics is critical for estimating your company's return on investment.
What is Web Analytics?
Web Analytics refers to the collection, analysis, and reporting of data from your website. It is used to analyze and report on the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns.
The aim is to understand the user experience and optimize it as much as possible.
Here are the major focus points in web analytics:
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Traffic analysis
- Burst campaigns - that run over a small period of time
- User experience - how users interact with your website & how easy do they find navigating through your website.
- Tracking - how many people visit your website, how many people click on a link, how many people complete a form, etc.
Web analytics are used to improve the experience of your website visitors. Which leads to happy customers and increased sales & satisfaction.
What are the best Web Analytics Tools
There is no single best answer. Every other person has a different requirement when it comes to web analytics.
But the popular and upcoming ones include tools like:
For General analytics
For Accurate Tracking
Web Analytics Types
There are two types of web analytics:
- On-site analytics It includes measuring the behavior of your visitors. Including clicks, scroll position, etc.
- Off-site analytics It includes measuring the data shared by your visitors indirectly. It focuses more on the behind the scenes insights. In this approach the data is not necessarily coming from your website. Metrics such as "reach" are analyzed.
Web Analytics Terms
These are some Web analytics terms you should know.
KPI
KPI or Key Performance Indicator is a measure of the success of a business. As a business you have certain objectives - it is a quantifiable measure of performance over time for that specific goal.
Micro & Macro level insights
For Macro level insights we recommend using Google Analytics and for Micro level insights we recommend using Veonr Analytics.
Good thing is you don't have to pick one. Go for both. More analysis & precision never hurts.
Macro level analysis:
We look over a huge period of time window and a group of metrics to get a general idea of the growth direction & results of the recent campaigns.
Micro level analysis
We look over a small batch of people who are actively using your website. And try to understand which pages can be improved. And how can we improve the user experience.
What to measure in Web Analytics?
Here are the major metrics you shouldn't ignore when it comes to tracking your Web analytics.
Bounce Rate
This is the percentage of people who leave your website after a short while of visiting it. As a general rule of thumb - anyone who leaves before 30 seconds has bounced off.
But again it depends on the type of content you are serving. If your bounce rate is high (as seen on tools like Veonr Analytics). You should consider implementing Tactics to Reduce Your Bounce Rate.
Engagement
Engagement is defined by a various events. For example - someone clicking certain links. Or a user filling out a form. Or clicking buttons that provide them with more valuable content.
Also includes comments, upvotes, downvotes, replies, saves etc.
Source of Traffic
Source of Traffic means where did your visitors find your website. They might be searching for something relevant on search engines like Google. And stumbled upon your highly ranked page. Or they might have found you via a social media marketing campaign.
To know all your sources of traffic. You can use accurate tools like Veonr Analytics. Since Google Analytics only gives you a general overall idea. And not the precise sources.
Load time
This is your page's load time. That is how long does the visitor have to wait before they see your page in front of their eyes.
As a rule of thumb. Keep this as lower as possible. Ideally lower than 1 second. Or at least try to be in the ballpark of 2 seconds or lower. Anything more than that and you will end up with lots of users bouncing off your website. Simply because no one is patient enough to wait for your website to load.
Especially when there are other alternatives out there.
Conclusion
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