What is web analytics? All you need to know about it 

Web analytics is the process of gathering and analyzing website data to look for ways to improve the customer experience. It is helpful in managing and optimizing websites or web applications. This way, you can make data-driven decisions that deliver results. You can also identify the areas of improvement within your product.

Web analytics are useful to digital marketing managers, product managers, data analysts, and UX designers for enhancing their websites. By knowing the website metrics, they can know the shortcomings of their website and make significant changes.

Here, in this blog, we will tell you all about web analytics meaning and how web analytics metrics can help your business.

What is web analytics? 

Web analytics definition: Web analytics is the method of collecting website data, reporting, and analyzing it to find ways to enhance the website user experience.

A web analytics tool can help you to track key website metrics like the number of visitors, conversion rate, bounce rate, and so on. The most common issue with web analytics is that there are so many metrics to track. Additionally, we can’t be sure about the data’s accuracy, and it also invades the users’ privacy. Therefore, whenever you are choosing a data analytics tool, keep these factors in mind.

What is web analytics used for?

Web analytics can help you see from which marketing channels users are coming to your website. You can know how the visitors navigate through your website and which web pages are getting the maximum users’ attention. You can evaluate how long the visitors stay on your website and which elements make them leave the web page.

You can use the collected information to determine how you can optimize your different web pages performance.  You can identify the content which is getting people’s attention and place it on the homepage as your popular content. You can know which are your high-converting and low-converting web pages. This way, you can focus on them and boost your overall website performance.

Why are web analytics important?

As you know, a website is like the first impression of your brand or company. Even before people order a product, they look at your website. Therefore, a website plays a key role in influencing the customer to make a decision. That’s why it’s crucial you collect your website visitors’ data to know how they interact with your website.

Here, we have given reasons why you should track web analytics and why they are important:

1. Understand your website visitors 

A web analytics tool can help you to know a lot of information about your website visitors, like the average time spent on a page and if they are new or returning customers. You can know what website content is driving the most traffic. This way, you can understand what elements of your website and product get the users’ interest. Then, you can use them to target your customers effectively.

For example, the analytics show that most of the people check out your best-selling products. Then, consider adding a section of best-selling products on your home page along with their features. This will ensure that people get to see what they want on your home page itself.

2. Analyze website conversions 

Conversion can have different meanings based on the final business goal. For instance, it could be signing up for a newsletter, filling out a contact form, or actually making a purchase. Web analytics can help you get information like the total number of conversions, the percentage of conversions, or the revenue earned from them. You can also see the abandonment rate and where people left off before converting. Not only this, but you can analyze your website visitors’ journey and see how they finally become your customers.

By using this information, you can carry out conversion rate optimization effectively. CRO will help you plan out your website to achieve the maximum conversion rate. Web analytics tools like WebMaxy Analyzer can help you gather these important metrics. You can understand what works for your business and what doesn’t. This way, you can focus your efforts in the right direction and get better results.

3. Know which is your best content 

Web analytics tools can help you know which content is performing well on your website. This way, you can curate the type of content that drives users’ attention and get traffic to your website. For example, analytics show that people are reading your blog article that talks about user behavior. This could be a signal that people like the user behavior insight feature of your product. Therefore, you can focus on modifying this feature and using it in your marketing strategies. Apart from that, you can write content pieces that talk about how your product can help people understand the users’ behavior.

4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You can use web analytics tools like Google Search Console to see which search queries are driving traffic to your website. From this information, you can create content that provides answers to those queries. By doing this, you can improve your search engine ranking.

You can also set up onsite search tracking to see what visitors are searching on your website. From the search data, you can create content on your site that answers the website visitors. You can also arrange the content in such a way that it becomes easy for users to find it.

5. Increase your referral sources 

Web analytics can help you to know which are your top referral sources. So you can understand which marketing channels you need to put your efforts in. For instance, you get to know that you’re getting 80% of your traffic from LinkedIn. Hence, you can think of further investing in LinkedIn ads.

Additionally, web analytics can help you discover outbound links on your website that people are clicking on. Along these lines, you can uncover some mutually beneficial relationships. You can connect with these external websites and look out for partnerships or cross-referral programs.

What metrics to track with web analytics? 

The website performance metrics of each website are different based on their business goals. Below, we have mentioned some of the important metrics that you should track with web analytics:

1. Page visits/ sessions 

You should track the page visitors or the traffic to a webpage over a specific time period. This metric is straightforward to measure; the higher the website traffic, the more people are noticing your website.

Remember, site traffic is a correlative success metric. For example, your blog post is getting 300 visits per month. Well, that’s not commendable traffic. However, if you find out that those are high-intent views coming from the prospects who are in the consideration phase. Then that makes the blog post valuable despite the low volume traffic.

2. Source of traffic 

Web analytics tools help you uncover the traffic sources of your website. Consequently, you can make your marketing strategies and tactics accordingly. For instance, you see a lot of traffic coming from Google ads. Then, you can consider them continuing in the long run to boost website traffic.

3. Website conversion rate 

Many people visit a website but never end up making a purchase. They get counted in the traffic but never contribute to revenue. Therefore, what really matters is the conversion rate of your website.

The website conversion rate is measured based on the critical action that the user has taken on your website. For example, it can be when a website visitor signs up on your website, fills up the contact form, or subscribes to emails. It depends on how you define a conversion for your website.

4. Bounce rate 

Bounce rate refers to the number of people who visit just one web page and then leave your website. A high bounce rate can indicate both positive and negative aspects. For example, it confers that people are not interacting with your other web pages. However, what if people spend a long time on a single webpage reading the information? This also specifies that people are engaging with your website.

That’s why it’s important you investigate the bounce rate further to know what’s the actual reason. You can use the WebMaxy Analyzer session recording feature to view your website visitors’ sessions. You can see how they interact & engage with your website.

5. Repeat visit rate 

The repeat visit rate refers to the number of people who are visiting your website repeatedly or regularly. These are sometimes the people who are customers who you have managed to retain over a period of time. Sometimes, these are even the people who are in the consideration phase of their buying journey. As per the report, a repeat visit rate of 30% is good. A repeat visit rate below 20% indicates that your website is not engaging enough.

6. Monthly unique visitors

Monthly unique visitors is the number of people who are visiting your website for the first time every month. This metric shows how effectively your marketing strategies are working to attract new prospects to your website. Having a high number of unique visitors means getting more new customers to your business.

7. E-commerce metrics 

For eCommerce companies, these are not the only metrics. There are various other KPIs they should track that we have mentioned below:

What are analytics tools for website?

There are many distinct tools that you can use for measuring web analytics. Below, we have mentioned some of the best web analytics tools examples currently available in the market.

To check their genuine reviews, you can go to review sites like G2, Trust radius, software suggest, etc.

What are the common issues with web analytics?

Web analytics can help you to identify the issues on your website. You can understand how you can optimize your website to fill in the gaps in your strategies. Below we have given some of the common issues with web analytics.

– Tracking too many metrics 

Nowadays, web analytics tools offer many different metrics that you can track. Apart from that, there are many tools like product analytics, business intelligence analytics, and customer behavior analytics tools that provide metrics. Often, it becomes very confusing to track them all and make a story out of it.

However, don’t get perplexed and only measure the metrics that are relevant to your business objectives. For instance, if your goal is to reach a certain number of sales, then you don’t need to measure the metrics based on every location.

– Data accuracy 

The data gathered by different analytics tools is not always accurate. Sometimes, even the users opt for services that block the analytics tools from tracking and collecting their data. They may block cookies as well, which further prevents data collection and leads to many missing bits of information.

As technology is advancing, we are moving towards a cookieless world. Therefore, it’s vital you opt for analytics tools that gather first-party data rather than relying on third-party data. Sometimes even these tools have incorrect data filters, which alters the information it collects. Thus, gathering the data which is inaccurate and unreliable.

– Data privacy at risk 

Overly exposed data can cause privacy issues. For example, people might reveal all sorts of personal information on your website, like their debit card details and address. If there is any privacy breach in your analytics service provider, then it might risk your users’ data. This can be extremely harmful to your business reputation.

Privacy laws have become more strict over the last few years due to an increase in the cybersecurity cases. Thus, it’s essential whichever analytics tool you use abides by privacy laws and ensures complete data privacy & security. WebMaxy Analyzer makes sure that all your users’ data is protected from any breaches.

– Data doesn’t convey a story 

Web analytics can reveal a lot of information about who interacts with your website. However, you can’t comprehend why the users behave the way they do. To get into the depth of your users’ behavior, you can use WebMaxy Analyzer. It helps you to identify users’ behavior patterns and trends. This way, you can go beyond web analytics and drive a higher conversion rate.

Conclusion 

Web analytics can help you get information on various aspects of your website like page visits, bounce & conversion rate. You can know how your website and marketing strategies are performing. WebMaxy Analyzer is a user behavior analytics tool that can help you understand your users better. You can know their needs, wants, and expectations from your business. This way, you can make precise changes and get better results.

This tool comes with various features like session recordings, heatmaps, surveys & feedback, funnel view, form analytics, user insights, segmentation, push notifications, and many advanced integrations. Schedule a call with our experts to get a free demo & pricing plan, or email us at [email protected].

FAQ’s

Why is web analytics important?

Web analytics can provide you with user insights that you can utilize to create better customer experiences. Here, we have given some of the major reasons why web analytics are important:
– Helps to understand customers 
– Enhance customer experience 
– Improves Search Engine Optimization 
– Boosts online sales

What are the different types of web analytics?

Web analytics provide you with information about how your website visitors engage with your website. There are different types of web analytics that we have mentioned below:
– Page visits 
– Time spent on the website 
– Bounce rate 
– Conversion rate

How to check website analytics?

You can check your website analytics with the help of various web analytics tools. Some of these tools are paid, while others are free. We have mentioned some of the free tools below:
– WebMaxy Analyzer 
– Google Analytics 
– Open Web Analytics 
– Hotjar

What are the top 3 website performance metrics to monitor?

Website performance metrics can help you to evaluate your website performance. Below we have mentioned the top 3 website performance metrics to monitor:
– Average time on website 
– Bounce rate
– Number of unique visitors