Web analytics is a set of tools that measures traffic and other stuff on your Web site. The Digital Analytics Association writes that there are four types of metrics involved with Web analytics and these are:
- Count – This is the most basic measuring unit that often involves a whole number such as visits and hits. Or other types of number such as sales, which could be expressed as $123.45.
- Ratio – This is a number divided by another number, this is usually designated with the word “per” in the phrase. For instance, Page Views per Visit.
- Key Performance Indicator – A KPI can be a count or a ratio that is related to business performance.
- Concept or Dimension – This does not involve a number but a concept. For example, the referrer is one type of dimension.
There are a lot of services that can help you gather traffic data and Web analytics. Some are third-party software that you have to pay for such as Sawmill, WebTraffiq.com, while others are free, such as Webstats and Google Analytics.
Improving Your SEO Using Web Analytics
You can use these Web analytics for a variety of reasons. One is using them to improve on your search engine optimization tactics.
For SEO, you would need to focus on these Web analytics:
Bounce Rate – The bounce rate takes into account the number of visitors you have that do not go into other pages and just leave the site. This is usually expressed as a ratio of those who leave your site without visiting another page against the total number of visits you have.
A high bounce rate is indicative of problems that can affect your search engine ranking negatively because you are essentially offering your users a bad experience with your site. A high bounce rate might be caused by:
- Broken Links
- Uninteresting or irrelevant content
- Badly targeted ads
Search Traffic – Take a look at the percentage of visits you get from search engines such as Yahoo, Bing or Google. A low visitors count might be indicative that you are not showing up on searches or that your keywords are not helping you get people to your site. It might also mean that you should amp up your SEO efforts.
Search Terms – These are basically the different keywords that your visitors are using to find your site on search engines. You might want to see what search terms are effective for you and what terms you need to focus on.
Landing page – Web analytics can also show you which of your pages are getting the most number of visits. This might help you determine which of your pages would make good landing pages for your search terms and give you an idea of the kind of content you should offer on your site.
Web analytics is a great way of understanding how people get to your site and how they behave while there. It can also give you a lot of insights as to how to improve user experience and what problem areas you may have that you could correct for a better search engine ranking.
If you’re thinking of personalizing the experience of your visitors, try FoxMetrics for free and Subscribe to our Newsletter get recent updates and news.