Website Analytics: Top 10 Website Analytics Tools in 2023

Website Analytics, in layman’s terms, is the analysis of the data derived from a website. Website analytics is the common buzzword these days. Many people are also considering permanently shift their careers as web analysts. If web analytics is a field that interests you but doesn’t have much knowledge about the same, well then, look no further. We have got you covered. Keep reading this article to get in-depth knowledge about website analytics.

What is website analytics?

The method of collecting, measuring, analyzing, and eventually reporting the internet data to comprehend and optimize the usage of the website is known as website analytics. The method which tells us the amount of traffic a website receives on average is called web analytics.

Businesses these days rely extensively on analytics for their business and market research and make data-driven business decisions. Every business has numerous questions and analytics is the answer to those questions. A proper understanding of analytics helps the business grow exponentially and thereby drive sales.

Also read: How to become a web analyst?

Key Website Analytics Metrics

1.       Value per Visit

The value contributed by a single visit is denoted by the value per visit. The value however is not easy to define in this case. A blog visit creates direct value by contributing to the page view and performing the call to action. Visitors to an e-commerce platform may generate direct value by making a purchase and indirect value by referring the product on the e-commerce website to their friends and relatives. Roughly speaking, value per visit can be calculated as the total money generated divided by the number of unique visitors.

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2.       Total Site Traffic

The total number of visitors on any page is defined as the total site traffic at that particular page. Conversion rate, Bounce Rate, etc can be easily calculated by using the total site traffic metric. The total site traffic with reference to your set time standard can help you determine the efficiency of your marketing practices. The time when the total site traffic peaks can tell you about the best and most efficient time for business and the time when the curve drops may give out a signal to change or adjust your marketing campaign. One thing that the total site traffic does not tell us is the quality of the traffic received.

3.       Source of traffic

Any business must know the source of your traffic. Traffic mostly are of three types. They are traffic by direct visitors, traffic by search visitors, and traffic by referral visitors.

• Direct visitors

Direct Visitors are those visitors who visit your website directly through your URL.

• Search Visitors

Search Visitors are those visitors who find your website from the search results of their web browser.

• Referral Visitors

Referral Visitors are those visitors who get redirected to your website from a different website.

Knowing the source of your traffic can prove to be of tremendous help to enhance your business.

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4.       Conversion Rate

The visitors who visit your website can be converted to leads if they perform a call to action. Moreover, if they buy something, they can be your customer as well. The total number of visitors who buy your product to the total traffic on your website is the conversion ratio. A high conversion rate of your website is an ideal situation for everybody. The underperforming web pages can be optimized as well.

5.       Lead Generation Cost

The lead generation cost is essentially the cost incurred by you per lead. The cost per conversion is the money spent to convert a qualified lead to a customer.  If the cost is high, your business will be affected adversely. Not keeping a track of your overall cost per lead or cost per conversion is one of the biggest reasons for businesses suffering huge losses.

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6.       Bounce Rate

Bounce rate essentially means that the visitor has moved away to some other site from your web page without performing any CTA. When the bounce rate is high, that means the web page is not able to fulfill the wants and needs of the customer and is thus a matter of concern. A high bounce rate indicates that the web page is not useful for the visitor or is extremely slow and has a bad design or that the content on the web page is irrelevant. You should always aim for a low bounce rate.

7.       Session Duration

The time spent by each visitor on your web page is called the average session duration. If the session duration is high, that might indicate that the content provided by you is engaging and relevant. If the session duration is low, that may be a matter of concern for you.

8.       Interactions per visit

This metric will give you an idea about what your visitors are doing when they reach your web page. It will tell you if they shift to some other part of the web page or write some comment or perform some different CTA.

9.       Top Page

Through analytics, you will get an idea about your best-performing pages. As a result, you will understand which web page and content is most engaging for your visitors and that in turn will help you to optimize your web page. Your highest performing pages will tell you what to publish in your next article also.

10.   Exit Pages

Exit pages tell you where the visitor’s exit from your web page. For example, if you own an e-commerce website, knowing where your customers abandon the conversion process can help you in many ways. You can optimize that stage or make other necessary changes as and when required.

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Website Analytics Tools

1.       Google Analytics

It is one of the most popular and free analytics tools used by professionals. It gives a real-time visitor count, bounce rates, and several other key metrics. It is provided by Google and is a leader in the web analytics industry. You will also get a list of the most popular keywords. Google Analytics is easy to use and is often the number one choice of many.

2.       Woopra

It is one of the best analytics tools that provide real-time tracking of traffic. It provides information about your visitor location, what pages your visitor visits the most, etc. You can also directly chat with your visitors if you wish. This feature allows you to convert qualified leads very easily. The customer interaction service provided by Woopra is of great advantage for e-commerce owners and other businesses. It has some free plans and some paid features as well.

3.       Clicky

This tool has a spy view feature that enables you to keep a check on what your current visitors are doing on your web page. It has both free and paid features which you can choose according to your requirements. The mobile application of Clicky lets you access key metrics anywhere on the go. It is quite handy and easy to use as well. The dashboard of Clicky provides you a detailed visual representation of key metrics that makes it very easy to comprehend the metrics for your website.

4.       Spring Metrics

Through Spring metrics, you get real-time metrics on conversion rates, sources of conversions, keyword analytics, the performance of your email, etc. It has made web analysis very simple and effective. If you buy the standard plan of Spring Metrics, you get a detailed overview of all the activities undertaken by your visitor from the time he enters till the time he leaves the website. The USP of this tool lies in its simplicity. The benefits of the standard plan can be availed free for the first 14 days.

5.       Mint

This self-hosted analytics tool, although a bit pricey, offers a host of functionalities that is not available in most of the analytics tools. You can keep a track of the visitors, their location, their activities on your web page, etc. You also get plenty of add-ons free.

6.       Crazy Egg

With the help of heatmap technology, crazy egg gives its users a powerful visual representation of the various metrics related to the visitors. It gives you detailed information about customer activity on your website. This in turn enables you to get an idea about the highest and lowest performing web pages. It has both free plans and paid offers with some additional features for its users.

7.       Kissmetrics

Kissmetrics is another analytics tool that allows you to keep a track of visitor activity over your website. It presents you with a visual representation of visitor behavior, your best and worst-performing pages, patterns of customer behavior, etc among other metrics. The timeline view of Kissmetrics is very popular and gives an overall picture of key website metrics to its users. It has a 30-day free plan and other paid plans as well.

8.       Chartbeat

This tool also throws light on key website metrics. It allows you to make any changes that you consider necessary for your website in accordance with the metrics it displays. It shows information about the time spent by the user on your website, the demography of the traffic received among other features. It has a 30-day free plan for its users and thereafter, with a minimal cost you can avail the features of this tool.

9.       Mouseflow

This analytics tool allows you to see a video of all the visitor activity on your website like mouseclicks, scrolling, keystrokes, etc. There are some free plans and some paid plans for its users as well.

10.   Mixpanel

This tool is popular for keeping an eye on customer behavior and KPIs on your website. It also has a mobile facility for use on the go. It has both free and paid features for its users.

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Why is website analytics important?

1.       Performance Tracking

If you cannot track the performance of your website effectively, you can never plan your way. Website analytics tells business owners key metrics about their internet data. Company managers and other decision-makers can see the traffic generated for their website, the traffic for individual web pages, the success or failure of their marketing campaign, the duration spent by each user, the demographics and source of the traffic generated, etc.

Thus they can effectively make better decisions about their company strategy and plan of action. They can better optimize their marketing strategies. All this in turn leads to better lead conversion which drives business.

2.       Visitor Information

Knowing who your customers and prospects are is perhaps the most crucial step in business. The visitor data can be used to build a repository for future reference. Having proper knowledge about your visitors, their activities on your website, their overall internet behavior can help you drive your business forward.

3.       Optimization of marketing practices

Many companies use digital marketing for their online businesses and thus invest heavily in digital marketing campaigns and advertisements. Naturally, they always require a reliable source for tracking the progress made, and the overall success or failure of their campaigns so that they can further optimize their efforts.

Web Analytics tools allow them to keep an eye on all the required parameters. These tools give information on which campaigns are driving traffic to your website. Digital marketing is a booming field these days and to make successful digital marketing campaigns, analytics tools will always be in demand.

4.       Optimization of content delivered

Any website may serve multiple purposes and typically comprises different web pages. Each page has its purpose. Web analytics tools can help you to optimize the content according to its functionality. For example, if a website has a dedicated blog page for its customers, then it will typically want its customers to spend a good amount of time-consuming the content that is being created. However, if the session duration of the visitors is not long enough on the blog page, which may indicate that the content generated is not of very high quality and that it needs improvement.