Digital Marketing

Web Analytics: What it is, How it is done and Useful Tools

Web analytics has been an integral part of the digital world for a long period of time. It’s become increasingly important as businesses look to refine their strategy and remain competitive in an ever-changing landscape. Analysing data is a critical part of running successful websites, online stores, blogs & social media accounts. Without it, you may not be able to measure your performance or get accurate insights into how your content or campaigns are performing.

By taking advantage of the massive amount of information available, big data enables organizations to make informed decisions when it comes to creating content and optimizing costs.

Analytical cookies track user behaviour on a website and provide insights into user behaviour such as if they scrolled, abandoned or what keywords drew them to the site. This data helps gain further insight into customer preferences and allows for better marketing strategies.

In order to make it easier for readers to get a comprehensive understanding of web analytics, we’ve created this informative guide. Our aim is to provide all the relevant information in one place so that there’s no need for readers having to wade through posts on the subject.

What is web analytics?

Despite its growing popularity, it’s necessary to define what digital marketing analytics actually is. In a nutshell, it’s a practice that uses user data from a website to better understand user behavior for the purpose of optimizing online experiences. For example, you will be able to know:

  • Through which of your pages users enter your website and which ones they leave.

  • If they click or leave without interacting.

  • The average residence time.

  • Where they entered your page: Google search, social networks, etc.

  • If they are new or recurring users.

  • And much, much more information.

In order to perform an effective web analysis, it is important to define the objectives of the data-gathering exercise. This involves learning about tools such as Google Tag Manager, which enables tracking of visitor behavior through codes.

It is worth emphasizing that for effective web analytics, you need efficient digital tools that can supply useful information. That is why it is critical to have the correct tools in place.

Digital web analytics tools

Digital tools are essential for conducting a web analytics study, as they provide the necessary data for making informed decisions. Without them, it would be very difficult to understand user behavior in the online space. Here are some free and paid options:

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the foundation of any web analytics research. Going forward though, it will be called Google Analytics 4 from July 2023 onwards and should be noted accordingly.

The data gathered by this tool provides useful insights into user’s experience on your website. It includes details such as:

  • web traffic.

  • Number of new and recurring users.

  • Dwell time.

  • Country of origin of the users, among others.

Google Search Console

Google Analytics is a free service which enables you to conduct website audits and generate reports based on the data gathered. This can be immensely helpful in assessing the performance of your website. These are some data that you can obtain:

  • It tells you which keywords your audience finds you with on Google.

  • It also determines how many clicks each URL gets and the position of your site in the Google search engine.

  • It gives you alerts when it detects problems with your website.

  • Report if your website works well on mobile devices.

  • Analyze the backlinks of your website.

Semrush

Semrush is a popular, pay-to-use tool for web analytics. It’s extremely beneficial in helping you with SEO audits of your own website as well as those of your competitors. However, it comes at a cost.

Among the information you can obtain is:

  • Know the best keywords to position your website or blog.

  • Analyze the backlinks of your website.

  • It helps you find topics that match the interests of your audience to increase visits.

  • It tells you how to improve your content based on real-time metrics.

  • It does a web traffic analysis of both your site and any other, even that of your competitors.

  • Monitor your social networks to analyze their performance.

ahrefs

Ahrefs not only offers a paid version, but also has a free plan to take advantage of. This handy tool helps you keep an eye on your competitors and provides you with data necessary to make appropriate improvements in the performance of your website.

AI technology can help with keyword analysis by providing you insights into the best ones to use on your website, as well as new keywords to add. It also offers an audit of your existing backlinks, which can be useful in discovering new opportunities.

Additionally, this tool provides web traffic analytics insights like those available on Semrush & Google Analytics.

How to measure social networks?

In addition to applying analytics to webpages, the same data can also be used to measure social media platforms.

Most social media platforms provide you with data such as the number of followers, likes and engagement rate. But understanding how this information can be used can be a little tricky. Let us help explain which aspects may be useful to you:

Reach: To determine this indicator, you must evaluate both the number of followers and the number of impressions. In this way, you will be able to determine if you are reaching enough users.

Interaction: it is not only important that people see you, but also that they interact with your brand. Pay attention to likes, comments and shared content.

Conversions: the ultimate goal of your marketing strategies is to achieve a conversion. That is, the user does something. This is one of the most important data if you want to measure the performance of your networks.

Web analytics can be extremely useful in determining the success or failure of your website and social networks. By analyzing data such as page visits and user engagement rates, you can identify potential problems and areas for improvement. Digital tools can be incredibly helpful in optimizing costs and improving the performance of your online presence. Using data to measure your progress is an important part of this process, so getting used to these methods is highly recommended.

Chandra Shekar

I'm a tech enthusiast who loves exploring the world of digital marketing and blogging. Sharing my thoughts to help others make the most out of their online presence. Come join me on this journey to discover the latest trends in technology and digital media.
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