Gaining an Edge With Web Analytics

Web analytics software is the eyes and ears to your web site visitors. Understanding the behavior of potential customers from the time they find your site, when they're surfing it, to when they leave, is essential for a number of reasons. Web development issues, cross platform compatibility, landing page success, and search engine visibility are just some of the areas analytics can shed much-needed light on.

In the mid 1990's, it created a splash when big businesses announced they were simply launching a web site. Today, many companies' web sites can function as the sole method of generating income. With the advent of blogs, discussion forums, podcasts, online stock info and more, people keep referring to web content daily, hourly, and even by the minute.

In my industry of search engine optimization, there are specific habits I need to know in order to make my web site function more efficiently. Useful information for me is:

- what search engines are referring visitors the most
- what keywords did my visitors search for
- what page are they visiting first (entry pages)
- what page are they visiting last (exit pages)
- what link is followed the most from my home page
- what's the ratio of total visitors to visitors who contact me

Advanced statistics and analytics software can tell me if say, visitors from Google are more likely to contact me than visitors from Yahoo's search engine. If this is the case, then I know by optimizing my site more for Google, I'm increasing the changes of contacts made.

Visitor information is especially useful when doing PPC campaigns. If you pay for every click on your ad, you're paying for every visit. You need to know how your site's structure works for your visitors. Are they getting confused on the entry page and leaving? If you created the PPC ad for the sole purpose of selling product A, are visitors from that ad more likely to visit sections of your site for product B for some reason?

Being able to react to your visitors' needs can have a profound effect on profit made from your web site.

Those who operate a web site blindly, that is to say those who don't know their visitors' habits, are at a disadvantage.

For more information, visit the Web Analytics Association.
To get to know your visitors better, sign up free for Google Analytics.