What is Web Analytics?
Web analytics is an unbiased discipline that actively finds and validates business opportunities by studying the habits and behavior of users, competitors, and trends in the “big picture”.
"It is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage."
Why Web Analytics so Important
Getting the visitors to your site is only 10% of the work. Your task really is to make them perform an action that is “Making the conversion happens”. It could be signing up for a newsletter, providing feedback or convincing them to make a purchase. The visitor who performs this action "converts" into a customer.
For eg: In a Online shopping website: Out of 20 customers:10 go for registration,5 plan for buying and 2 results in buying page.
Here we should analyse why did the customer skipped the shopping,what made those customers to buy and all other analysis.There are so many metrics which should be considered for improvising the traffic and making the conversion happen.We can have a valuable customer who can be a repeat buyer.
In order to do this, we need to
· where they came from(country, referring site, search, direct traffic),
· who they are(which browser)
· how they came(keywords)
· what they did(path taken, converted)
For this we use Web Analytics tool to make this analysis to profile a visitor who is most likely to convert..
How Web Analytics helps to increase the traffic
A website’s web data can be captured by any number and various types of tools. With how the majority of these tools work though , pretty much everything a visitor to a site does is captured or measured. This means if you’re interested in how long a visitor spent looking at your site on? Which pages they looked at in which order? What they searched for in google to find the site? How often visitors return to your site?
• You’re unsure if the pages with photos on in your web site helps you make more sales than the pages with reviews on? The web analytics data helps you prove this by comparing them and seeing which one leads to selling more than the other..
• You’re unsure why people who look at the products you offer on your web site then fail to buy them? The web analytics data can show you what pages on the site between the products that are viewed and the buying journey cause people to leave.
• You’re unsure why you only get requests via the contact form on your site for the low value services you provide? The web analytics data can show you what terms visitors are entering on Google to find your site, so you can see if people are not finding you when they look for your higher value services.
As you can see, the web analytics data helps you to understand what on your site the visitors to it like and dislike, what they interact with and what they don’t. This means by using web analytics, any decision about your site you make can have any element of guess work removed from it, as you can see exactly what works and what doesn’t by how the visitors have reacted to it.
In its simplest form, Web Analytics can tell a business everything there is know about all the visitors to your website. It provides you with the important information to improve your business online and increase revenue. Some of the important things that Web Analytics can tell us include:-
- How many visitors came to your website?
- How many pages were viewed?
- What the most popular page was?
- Where your customers came from and how they arrived on your website?
- On which page the most visitors left your site without buying anything?
- Which search engine your visitors used to find your site?
- Which online banner or online advertisement your visitors selected to find your site?
- What keywords were used to find your site and which ones were most effective?
Web Analytics Process
Web Analytics key metrics:
Target Action: Success on the web means getting people to do what you want when they visit your site. So the first thing you need to do is decide what it is you want them to do.
Conversion Rate: This is the percentage of visitors to your site who engage in your Target Action. If you want them to fill in a contact form, your Conversion Rate is the percentage of visitors who submit the form. If you're selling online, your Conversion Rate is the percentage of visitors who buy something
Prospect Rate: If you do want to improve your site, you need to establish where it's failing. The secret is to work back from your Target Action. The first thing to ask is, "how many are getting to that point in the site?" This is your Prospect Rate. For example, if you want people to fill in a contact form, your Prospect Rate is the percentage of visitors who viewed the form in the first place
Abandonment rate: Between viewing these pages and completing the Target Action, the visitor has to do something. If it's a form, they have to fill it in and hit the submit button. If it's a shopping site they have to fill in a credit card page and submit that. People who look at these forms and don't complete or submit them are said to have "abandoned".
Committed Visitor Index: Ratio of Page Views to Visits for only very long visits
Bounce Rate: Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page
