Web Analytics Tips: Follow These Three Steps For Better Web Analysis

By Author: Winston Morrison
Total Articles: 79
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Analysis of Web analytics involves tracking visitors to learn how they find and interact with your website.
If you're trying to sell a product or service on the Web using SEO and PPC, knowing how to effectively analyze your Web analytics and visitor behavior is crucial to your site's success.
The key to Web analytics success is having a better understanding of:
Traffic sources- where do your visitors come from?
Visitor behavior - what are users doing when they're on your website?
Keywords - what keywords are searchers typing into the engines to find your website?
In the following sections, we'll break down these metrics into three easy steps so you can become more familiar with Web Analytics and improve your website.
Step 1: Know Your Users Traffic Patterns
Do you know who is coming to your website? Do you know how they're getting there? Do you know if they're unique, first time visitors or have they been to your site before?
If you don't know the answer to these questions, you can acquire it by installing Google Analytics on your website. Google Analytics is one of the ...
... best Web analytics software tracking packages availableand it's free! Once installed, you'll be able to see how many visitors are coming to your website each day, what hour of the day they're on your website, as well as which direction your visits are trending.
With this data, you can make changes to your website to improve user experience, which we'll discuss in the following sections. As you continue to upgrade your site, you can track the changes in Google Analytics to see if they are helping to boost your traffic numbers. The more you increase the traffic to your website, the more you expose potential consumers to your business, your service or your products.
Step 2: Know the Behavior of Your Visitors
Once people do get your website, what do they do when they get there? Are they staying on your website and exploring deeper pages, or are they leaving immediately?
Bounce rate is a Google Analytics metric that tells you the percentage of users who immediately bounce off your website. A higher bounce rate means your website could be in trouble. Page views are also a good indicator of your site's health. Low page view numbers means users aren't exploring your website.
To lower your bounce rate and raise page views, you can:
Add inline links - these are anchor text links you should include in your content to take users deeper into your website.
Use more and better visual cues - be sure to add design elements to your web pages that are calls-to-action for visitors, such as sign-up forms, free estimate buttons, colored text boxes, etc.
Simplify your site's navigation - make sure your website architecture is clear and straightforward. Assemble a usability focus group to navigate your website. Give them specific tasks to accomplish on your website. Listen to their feedback.
Step 3: Do Your Keyword Analytics Research
Do you know which keywords searchers are using to find your website?
Google Analytics records the specific keyword search queries that visitors use to find your website. Having access to this keyword research data is extremely useful for SEO and PPC. Once you know the keywords searchers typing into the engines, you can optimize your website accordingly. This means you can begin to author keyword-specific content for your website themed around these target keywords. Having more relevant keyword rich content for your website will drive more traffic, more conversions and will make for a better overall user experience.

Ken Lyons is Marketing Manager for WordStream, Inc., in Boston. WordStream provides Dynamic Keyword Management Solutions and Web Analytics for search marketers, through a full suite of keyword research tools. More on that at Web Analytics Tips: Follow These Three Steps for Better Web Analysis