Skip to main content

Why is Web Analytics important to your business?

 Are you wondering what is 'Web Analytics'? and why is it important for your website? 

In this article, we will explain define web analytics, discuss a tool most commonly used by businesses and why you should use it too. 

What is Web Analytics?

Website Analytics, or Web Analytics, refers to the collection, processing, measurement, and reporting of data generated on the web. 

Simple enough! No, not really. The next question here is what actually is this 'data' and how is it generated? Simply put, all users of the website (human or non-human) generate data by the activities they perform online. Measuring this online data is one of the jobs performed by a web analytics tool. Processing it into usable information and reporting is another. 

Web analytics provides you usable information about the users that visit your web property. 

Why is Web Analytics important? 

It helps you measure how well your website is performing. It helps you set goals and work towards them. A web analytics tool can collect all sorts of interesting information about the users (visitors to your website) that can help us work towards our business goals. 

Let us consider this example: You have a website at yourname.com How will you decide if it is popular or not? To get this information, you have to see the number of visitors on your website. If the number of visitors to your website increase over a period of time, you can safely assume that your website is doing what it is supposed to. How do you get this information? This is where a web analytics tool like Google Analytics can help.

Let us use two graphs from the GA demo account of the Google Merchandise store given by Google for the purpose to illustrate this. 

The first graph shows the number of users the store has from September 1, 2020 - September 15, 2020. 

 
Users: 20,460

The second graph shows the number of users the store has from September 16, 2020 - September 30, 2020.

Users: 22,228


We can compare the number of users in the first 2 weeks to the last two weeks of September and conclude that the online store was visited by more people during the last weeks of September than the first. 

Image source: Google

Which web analytics platform should I use for my website?

According to a survey by W3Techs, as of the year 2020, more than half of the websites online used Google Analytics. Google Analytics is free to use for small businesses. It gives you lots of insights and helpful information about the traffic to your website.  

For more information about Google Analytics, you can read my blog post.


Why should I use a web analytics tool for my website? 

A web analytics tool can give you actionable insights about your web traffic, which can help you make better business decisions, implement business strategy and help your business grow. 

Most analytics tools collect anonymous traffic data. That means when a user visits a website, a randomly generated user identification id is associated with the user. 

We will list 4 reasons why a web analytics tool is important to your business' growth

1. Get to know your visitors

Knowing more about the traffic we get on the website, helps us to cater to them. A web analytics tool like Google Analytics gives us demographic data about the visitors that come to our website. The web Analytics tool collects information like:
  • Age: This parameter tells us about the age range of the visitors to the website. 
  • Gender: This information tells us about the gender of our website and might be interesting to bloggers, retailers etc.


2. It can help you optimize your best content

Knowing about the visitors to your website, can help you cater your content to them. For example, a fashion blogger who has mostly millennial female readers will benefit by generating more content ie. writing more blog posts of interest to millennial females. That can help increase traffic and establish brand identity in that niche. 


3. It can help with the SEO

Increased traffic results into better search engine rankings. Tools like Google Analytics can be synced with the Google Search Console to give keyword suggestions.


4. Must have for ecommerce businesses

A web analytics tool is very important for anyone engaging in ecommerce. 


The above picture is from my Google Analytics dashboard

Conversion tracking is also called tracking of visitors' engagement with your website. Retailers use this information to improve their marketing efforts.

Consider the goal of an online hotel booking website. The goal of the website is to increase the number of visitors to their website make an online booking using their booking calendar.  For this, they need to make it as simple and intuitive as possible for their online visitors to engage with the content of the website and make a booking on the calendar. This information is tracked by a web analytics tool. The data collected on their web analytics tool gives them information about visitor engagement with the content of their website. 

To summarize this article, we discussed what are web analytics tools, why should we use them and how can they benefit your business. 

You can read more about how to use a web analytics tool like Google Analytics on your website here. You could contact Anandi for further assistance. 

Popular Posts

Want a website? Start here: Things I need to consider before I talk to my designer.

You want to have a website for your growing business, but do not know where to start? Whether you are a first time entrepreneur or have been around the block a couple of times, having a checklist of things to consider before you start on your project always helps. In this blog, we give you a checklist of some important points you have to consider before you decide to embark on this process. How will I find a good website designer/developer? The first place to start is your immediate circle. Word-of-Mouth. Reach out to your family, friends and associates to ask if they know someone who can sit with you and help you navigate this journey. Ask for past references. Chances are that you will end up finding someone who meets your needs through these channels.  If this does not work, widen your net. This is where your trusty friend Google comes to help. There are many websites you can find freelance website designers whole are willing to work on your project with your budget. Don't be shy...

Keyword research in SEO

What is keyword research in SEO and why is it important? Have you ever wondered about keyword research and why is it important to your SEO strategy? We have you covered. In this guide we explain some definitions, show you how to use a free tool for keyword research and explain to you why it is important to do it before you implement your SEO strategy. What is a keyword? Keyword is a word or a string of words (called a phase) that users type into the search engines, to find the content they want. The most common search engine users use to find information is Google . These keywords can also be referred to as ' SEO keywords ' or 'Search Queries'. Though these terms are often used interchangeably, there is a difference between the two terms . Keywords are used to for SEO purposes, while search queries are what the user type in the search engines to locate the information they need.  Another common tern is long-tail keywords. Long-tail Keywords are usually longer than most...

Is search engine optimization still relevant? and should I invest in it?

YES - a simple answer to the question.   As a digital marketing service provider, I find SEO to be one of the toughest services to sell to small businesses. Reason: you cannot see the results immediately. SEO is a long-term strategy to rank your website for relevant keywords. This makes small businesses reluctant to invest resources in SEO.  What makes SEO so important? Let us dig deeper to understand the relevancy of SEO better. What is SEO?   SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. It refers to the process of optimizing your website (design and content) so that it becomes more attractive to the search engine. This is done in hopes that the search engine will display our website on top of the search engine result pages, sending more organic or unpaid traffic to our website.  Why is SEO relevant to small businesses?  In simplest terms, good SEO helps your website or blog stand out. Google generates 1.1 million GB of internet traffic per minu...