Why web analytics is important for website traffic

Every website should have a goal. If a website serves no purpose, you can, to put it bluntly, take the page offline and save the hosting fees. So if you haven’t yet defined a goal that you want to achieve with your website, you should do so as soon as possible. In order to then see or measure whether the desired goals are being achieved, use an analysis tool such as Google Analytics. With the knowledge and information obtained from the web analytics, the further course of action in terms of online marketing can then be planned. The following questions support planning and design:

Have I achieved my goals?

If not, why didn’t I achieve my goals?

What can I do to achieve my goals?

What are my other goals?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of my website?
and much more.

Before these questions can be answered, we first have to ask ourselves what web analysis is and how we get our data.

What is web analytics?

Web analytics is a measure to determine information relating to user behavior on the website. The information is recorded and evaluated in various analysis tools and various key figures are calculated from this. A basic distinction is made between two types of analysis : Log file analysis: Here, automatic log files are created on the web server, which receive a time stamp each time they are accessed. This method is now rarely used, as it provides much less information and key figures compared to PageTagging, sometimes reproduces inaccurate figures and requires regular updates.

PageTagging: With the help of a JavaScript code, which must be built into each individual page, information about the visit to the website is passed on to the analysis tool. In addition, an invisible 1 × 1 large tracking pixel is integrated on the page. This ensures that if the JavaScript code is deactivated in the browser, at least the page views are counted. If the standard browser settings are called up, key figures such as dwell times, conversion rates and bounce rates are simply available in the tool. Probably the best known and most widely used page tagging tool is Google Analytics . Google Analytics is free of charge and can therefore be used primarily by companies with a low advertising budget. If you need a significantly larger range of functions or have a lot of traffic on your website, you should better use paid tools. Here, too, Google offers one of the leading tools with its enterprise solution.

These are the market leaders in this segment:

1. Google Analytics
2. 360Piwik PRO
3. Etracker
4. Adobe Marketing Cloud

The right selection of the appropriate analysis tool depends on several factors, such as functionality, size of the traffic, costs or compatibility with other tools, which must be clarified in advance.

What is the goal of my website and what does that have to do with web analytics?

Quite simply: Without goals, you collect data and information without having a clue as to which of these data or key figures could be important for the company. For this reason, goals must be defined in advance, which in most cases can be derived from the company goals. Examples of typical goals of web analysis are:

• Sale of products in the online shop
• Measurement of the success of advertising measures and campaigns
• Strengthen customer loyalty
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Strengthen branding
• Increase awareness

Goals defined … now what?

After the goals have been defined, a tracking concept should be created and then implemented in Google Analytics and the Google Tag Manager. This allows the goals to be measured and evaluated precisely. A tag management system (e.g. Google Tag Manager) is a tool with which you can manage all of your tags without interfering with the source code. Various applications such as analysis tools, re-marketing tools or testing tools can be implemented quickly and easily on the website. The Tag Management System also provides a good overview of existing tags. If you start with the goal of increasing sales in the online shop, key figures such as the ratio of buyers to total users or the abandonment rate in the purchase process are important. Another important measurement can be which product is performing best and which is the worst.

Track Your Audience Then Build Strategies To Gain More Of Them

Now that goals have been defined and the tracking concept has been created, all that is missing is ideas of what can be tracked.
The answer is short: ALMOST everything. Most analysis tools already provide a large number of detailed standard reports in the free version, which makes it much easier to get started.

The following questions are usually very helpful and give a good overview of what is possible and useful:
How many and through which channels do users come to my site?
What is the average length of stay on my page?
What is the bounce rate? And where do my users leave the site?
How did my users interact with the various pages? Have you watched videos? Has the quiz been solved? Etc.
What paths do my users take on the website?
Which content / products are particularly interesting for my users?
What is the relationship between online sales and the costs of online marketing activities?
Which product or site performs best?
Which campaign was particularly successful in terms of traffic generation and purchases?
and many more.

Based on the data from these questions, optimizations can and should be carried out on the site. In this way, the page is adapted to the wishes of the customers.

Conclusion

Web analytics is the most important tool in digital marketing . Without it, it cannot be measured how the page is performing, which marketing measures or campaigns are working on the website and which errors should be corrected. Based on the analyzed data, the website can be continuously adapted to the needs of the user in order to improve the user experience. This benefits both you as the website operator and the website visitor. A classic win-win situation !