Understanding Web Analytics

By Derek Jubach



What are web analytics?

Who is coming to your site? Prospects? Tire-kickers? Anybody? What do they do when they get there? Web analytics tells you all this and more. Here's some of what you can learn:

¥ The keyword/phrase the visitor used in his search to find your web site

¥ The most frequented pages on your site

¥ The visitor's path through the site, including entry and exit

This data can be used simply to track the overall success of your web site, or it can be analyzed to improve the site's effectiveness as part of your overall marketing campaign.

There are many different providers of web analytics software. This article will focus on Google Analytics, as it is currently free and provides a wealth of useful and targeted analysis tools.



In the Beginning

In the early days of the Internet, web statistics were simply a tally of the number of times an HTML file, image or web page was viewed, commonly referred to as "hits." You may remember the little hit counters, usually located near the bottom of the web page, proudly boasting about the number of "visitors."

The fact of the matter is that hits are very inaccurate to use as an indicator of traffic. A hit can be counted each time a bit of data is downloaded from the page - that data can be images, files, HTML data, etc.

This means that a single visitor could account for dozens of hits. So those hit counters that site owners were so proudly displaying were supplying false or at least misleading data.

In the late '90s, the tracking of web data improved greatly. Now you could track the web views, and most importantly, unique visitors. The unique visitors statistic is the most accurate piece of data for gauging traffic on your web site and provides a much clearer picture of exactly how many visitors are coming to your site.

A unique visitor is defined as a visitor that is accessing your web site for the very first time. This visitor's IP address is logged in the stats package to ensure that it is not counted a second time on a return visit.

To better understand what a unique visitor is, think of it this way: Thirty people visited your web site over the course of a week. These people each visited the site multiple times and on multiple days during the week. Regardless of how many times these 30 people came back to your web site, your unique visitor count is still 30.



Effective Web Analytics

As search engines gained popularity, detailed web analytics and enhanced statistic tools became more important in gauging how effective Internet marketing campaigns were. Analytics and web statistic providers took notice of this demand, and statistics and analytics now include data such as:

¥ Direct traffic vs. referred traffic

¥ Top referring search engines

¥ Traffic over time

¥ User path through web site

The graphic accompanying this article is from a Google Analytics account. There is a wealth of information presented in this one screen shot. The total amount of information available through this resource can be a bit overwhelming at first. It is important to know what information is most valuable to you and how to understand it.

The first step is to make sure you have access to your statistics. You first need to (or have your webmaster) set up an account on Google Analytics. For now Google Analytics is free to use, and the information the package gathers is extremely useful and is presented in a very well organized, graphical format.

There is also a demonstration video and very extensive help documentation that explains how Google Analytics works and what all of the analytic data means to your web site.

The basic information will show you how your site is doing overall. After your comfort level with the interface increases, you can start to use the more specific and targeted data such as keywords and ad campaign effectiveness through Google and other search engines. You can also track the effectiveness of your e-mail marketing campaigns and/or e-commerce trends and revenue sources, and set up and track site goals.

The important thing to remember is that your web site is an extension of your overall marketing and communications efforts. To understand how effective those efforts are, you need solid data to analyze.

The beauty of analytics is that you can access real data, in real time, and track the effectiveness of this area of your marketing and communication efforts more accurately than ever before.



Other Options

Of course Google Analytics is not the only game in town. Here is a list of other web analytics tools available.

¥ Omniture

¥ WebSideStory

¥ WebTrends

¥ CoreMetrics

¥ ClickTracks

¥ IndexTools

¥ Unica NetInsight

As always, do your homework and find the analytics package that works best for you and your web site. Check with your webmaster and hosting company first because some hosting packages provide these types of statistic packages with your hosting service.



Derek Jubach is media developer and Internet marketing specialist for Wood Street (www.woodst.com). He can be reached at 301-668-5006.