Web Analytics: An Overview in 3 Easy Points
Introduction
Data is king, and the metrics of websites usable for a variety of web analytics depending on the kind of information required from it. Today, it is possible to use web traffic analysis and analytical tools to drive traffic, improve content strategy, and make web analytics a powerful tool. Thus just collecting web data, analyzing it and reading it well can give one information about the types of web analytics available, customers both present and potential, what they need, how to improve the benefits of web analytics, and so on, which are all critical decisions for one’s business.
In this article let us look at:
1. What is web analytics?
On a daily basis, data is generated, and the amount of data sp collected is most often huge and forms the distinct disadvantages of web analytics! It is thus important that one knows what to do with the data. Web analytics is the process of collecting and analyzing the data from a website. For Ex: Who visits the website and how much time do they spend on it. The importance of web analytics during the analysis stage provides the key metrics on which decisions are based using the useful foresight offered by the web data.
2. Five key web analytics
There are many trackable metrics in web analytics from the website. The 5 key metrics are
Website traffic: This metric refers to how many visitors a website gets in a specified time. It provides information about how much attention the site is receiving and how it has evolved. Normally older websites have better traffic. When it is off-key or diminishes, it means something is keeping traffic to the site. Typically the web analytics examples offer explanations like the site having SEO or Search Engine Optimization issues.
Bounce rate: A bounce is defined as a visitor to the website who does not view the next page. This metric of web analytics is compared to the overall traffic generated to give the bounce rate. It predicts the website’s usability, and hence a rise in it could point to problems like poor web design, loading time being too long, navigation scheme being clumped etc. Typical rates could vary between a high of 70 to a low of 20% and depends on the content provided on the site. If the rates creep above 30%, it is time to troubleshoot the issues behind it.
Source of traffic: It is normal that first-time users of a site use a link and not the URL. Most sources of web traffic are in 4 categories.
- From search engines
- Email campaigns
- Other site links
- Social media links.
Other websites link to reputable scores on the search engine for web-analytics, making it the primary source of traffic to websites that can be improved through web-analytics strategy and maintaining a traffic vigil. Keywords form an important part of the search engine strategy and the advantages of web-analytics.
Mobile Vs Desktop visits: This metric is also very important since mobile traffic is far more than desktop traffic in modern times and requires a completely different experience-oriented strategy. The use of web-analytics tools for a mobile-first strategy is a long-term strategy and dependent on the web-design and rate of traffic from mobile visits.
Returning and New Visitors: Visitors need to visit the website for information, availing of benefits on it etc. A higher rate of return visitors forms the core audience to focus on. Also, new visitors experience on the website should be tweaked to ensure recurring traffic rates of about 30% of the number of visitors in total. Low metric in web-analytics for this factor points out issues in website engagement, and the content offered or other usability factors.
3. How to start collecting web analytics?
Google Analytics is a popular tool used by many websites for web analytics. It is free and provides web-analytics processing and access to the metrics from the Google search engine. Read up on setting up of Google Analytics on a website with WordPress to start collecting data and analyzing it. The Google Analytics WD plugin could also be effective. One will need to create and customize the dashboards with the tools of Google web analytics to quickly reflect the data and metrics that are very useful to the website’s health.
Conclusion
Website analytics define the health of the website and works on the data collected from the website. Thus key metrics like the overall traffic, sources of traffic, bounce rates, new vs returning clients, mobile vs desktop traffic etc., are important in diagnosing the effectiveness of the website. The foresight provided by website analytics is an important tool in business strategy. If one needs to start with web analytics, Google Analytics can be the saviour tool and is completely free to use. Why wait? Start today!
If you are interested in making it big in the world of data and evolve as a Future Leader, you may consider our Business Analytics Certification, a 10-month online program, in collaboration with IIM Indore!
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