Website Analytics

19/09/2008

The analytic tools you need to understand what is happening on your site are free, so why wouldn’t you use such a service?

Part of the work we do at sandbox media is website re-designs and development to improve useability, accessibility or search engine optimisation, to overcome the following issues:

  • Users coming to site, but not purchasing (in an e-commerce store)
  • Users leaving quickly without really looking around the site
  • Users not making desired call-to-actions, such as contacting the company
  • No users coming to the site at all

The first thing we ask for on such a job is the analytics package login. Although there is a definite shift towards analytic package adoption, in most cases the response we receive is ‘what are website analytics?’.

Essentially, web analytics is ‘the study of online behavior in order to improve it’. So, in cases where clients want us to improve aspects of their site, an analytics package is the best route to success.

We can look through the statistics gathered in the analytics packages to determine among other things:

  • Where visitors are coming from
  • Visitor demographics
  • What pages they are viewing and actions they are taking (e.g. using a contact form) on the site
  • How long they are staying on the site
  • Where the visitors are deciding to leave

This wealth of information gives us an insight into who the visitors are and what they are actually doing on the site. Rather than second guessing this information, it gives us leads on what needs addressing on the site and, using our experience as website developers, how we approach the highlighted issues for successful website improvement.

The analytics tools you need to achieve this are becoming increasingly cheap and even free, so why wouldn’t you signup for such a service?

Contact sandbox today for a useability / accessibility / SEO critique of your website, or if you don’t already have an analytics package installed on your site, we can talk you through the options to get you going.

Further reading:

 

Google Analytics

 

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