Let’s Figure Out What Web Analytics Is?
Your site is full of likes and comments, but unfortunately, this data is not enough to fully explore the site. It is necessary to go further and deeper in understanding the behavior and actions of site users in order to understand:
- How will they be able to find the site on the web;
- how will they get on it;
- what steps will users take before performing a targeted action (filling out a feedback form, calling a manager, or clicking an order button);
- how to make users’ stay on the site as long and comfortable as possible, etc.
All this is within the scope of the tasks of such a discipline as web analytics
Web analytics is the collection, analysis, and interpretation of information about site visitors in order to identify and understand the reasons for their actions, and then optimize and improve the site in terms of functionality, design, usability, content (including commercial), and others.
The importance of web analytics is so high that even large companies with many years of offline experience risk getting lost on the last pages of search results if they ignore analytical data or interpret it illiterately.
At any time during the operation of a conditionally old site and from the very first days of operation of a completely new site, you need to connect one or more services to it.
This is professionally done by web analytics specialists who:
- They collect and analyze user activity data, including the number of pages viewed and the duration of viewing, the regions of visitors, and their interests.
- They identify traffic sources: other sites, social networks, messengers, direct visits, and contextual advertising services.
- Furthermore, they check the correctness of the semantic core collection: according to its results, ineffective keywords are eliminated from the text content and new keywords are added.
- They evaluate the traffic to the resource, starting from studying summary reports and up to analyzing the popularity of specific pages of the site — content, products (service pages or product cards), and contact information. A web analyst can see here how much time users spend on pages, which links they click on, and which ones they leave altogether.
- Interpret and anticipate user actions in order to understand which of them noticed and reacted to subscribing to the newsletter, clicking the “Buy” button, sending contact information, etc.), and who got stuck at a certain stage and left the site.
All of the above applies equally to web resources with a history.
What can be analyzed using web analytics
There are a huge number of parameters, of which we will list only the main ones:
- The number of visits and visitors to the site by day, week, month, and year.
- The time when users are on the site.
- The number and depth of page views by users.
- Bounce rates. Clicks on the internal links of the site.
- Traffic from external sources — other sites, social networks, messengers, etc.
- Data about gender, age, geography, social status, and interests.
- User actions: comments in blog articles, product reviews, the procedure for ordering goods, taking surveys, etc.
- Achieving goals: going to a specific page, clicking a button, filling out and submitting a form, etc.
- Technical indicators of the site: page loading speed, site load, device type, operating system, and correct display in various browsers.
Advantages of Web analytics
Search for and research the target audience. Thanks to it, you can find out demographic data (gender, age, education, income, family status), geographical location, behavioral, and psychographic characteristics.
Building a sales funnel when you know which points of contact with your resources are in the customer’s path.
The discovery of “thin” places in your own sales and communication chains. Perhaps your managers did not respond to the leads that came to the site simply because they did not respond to the feedback forms.
Increase conversion at all stages of customer interaction.
Proper allocation of budgets through promotion channels in order to invest in effective and/or promising ones and exclude those that give zero results. For example, only on the basis of a report on traffic sources can you understand that, for example, SMM does not show itself in any way, but SEO is still alive and gives leads.
Identifying market trends and implementing into your work what you have learned as a result of competitive analysis.
Traffic channels
Thanks to web analytics, it is possible to evaluate traffic channels by parameters and identify the most effective ones among them. For example, you can not only understand that external sites generate the most traffic to the site, but also see which ones exactly. This is very important when external publications require time and/or financial expenses.
Moreover, you can find out which traffic source not only gives you more traffic, but also converts better than others.
User Characteristics
You can understand what gender your audience is, what age they are, where they are from, what they are interested in, etc. This will help you understand whether you have targeted your products and services to the right audience. Sometimes a thorough analysis allows you to test the most improbable hypotheses about the composition of users.
In addition, you can find out which device (PC, laptop, TV, tablet or smartphone) the user came from, which operating system he was on, and what screen resolution was on his device. The latter helps you understand that, for example, the majority of the audience watches your site exclusively on mobile phones, and it is not adapted for you. Well, this is an excuse to turn over your web resource!
User behavior
In addition to traffic sources, we can literally see what users are doing on the site. For example, in Google Analytics, this can generally be done in real time. You can set which pages they view and for how long, which feedback forms they open (and fill out!), which icons they are interested in, what content, etc.
Technical performance indicators of the site
Among other things, you can find out the correctness of the site’s display on different devices. The speed of loading web pages, the way, and correctness of the site’s display in different browsers, and the installation of critical and minor errors that affect its operation.
Sometimes this alone saves sales and protects against profit losses, because an online store that does not work.. is a disaster.
Conversions
They relate the number of targeted user actions to their total number. You can monitor the filling out of forms (when users have entered, not fully entered, or have not entered contact information to send) by clicking on an email address or phone number. Such actions are usually classified as macro conversions, i.e., actions that turn site visitors into leads and then into buyers.
In addition, you need to pay attention to micro-conversions, for example, placing an item in a shopping cart or in Favorites. They are extremely important because, thanks to them, you can find out at what stage the majority of customers fall off and correct them.
What data does Google Analytics collect
The collected data is summarized in seven standard reports:
- Demographics;
- Age;
- Gender;
- Interests;
- Audience segments by interests;
- Segments of the audience present in the market;
- Other categories.
Read also how Web Analytics helps business
How to use web analytics systems
With the help of the array of data that we receive through web analytics systems, it is possible to make changes both to the site and to contextual or targeted advertising campaigns. And also to remove traffic sources that did not show up as expected from them.
Let’s look at examples of what can be obtained from their analysis:
You have an online store, and you see that there are abnormally few visitors to the site from one city. We did a little research and realized that there is no pick-up point here, and you need to go to the nearest city with pick-up of goods on your own. As a result, it is better to disable the display of advertisements for this city.
You have launched two contextual advertising campaigns for two different audiences. With the same receipt, the cost of a click to the first audience is multiples lower than the second one. Either we’re reallocating budgets, or we’re thinking about whether it’s worth showing to a second audience.
Briefly about the main thing
Web analytics is the collection and analysis of information about a site’s audience to increase its conversion rate.
A thorough analysis boils down to comprehensive web analytics.
