Is Website Analytics Software Important to Use?

In a word: yes! If you have a website, and you want to generate business from that site, you need website analytics software in order to tailor your site to maximize that income. So, first, let’s define what we’re talking about. There are actually two types of website analytics software: off-site and on-site. We’ll examine both.

First, off-site analytics software measures and analyzes a website’s potential. It looks at activity going on across the Internet as a whole, and can tell you what sort of buzz (what sort of comments) a website is generating, how visible the site is (what share of the voice the site is getting), and its audience.

With the on-site software, it looks at how your website is doing. The program will typically have drivers and conversions to assess which landing pages of your site are getting people to actually make a purchase. Just to give some background, there are two types of landing pages: transactional and reference. The first is designed to get people to actually make a purchase, and it typically looks like a form to be filled out. So, as in say Amazon.com, you would fill out the order form to buy books, programs etc and then click ‘purchase’. With reference landing pages, they are more informational in format. This is where you put up data on what your site offers: product lists, prices, styles etc. As for conversions, those have nothing to do with converting or changing meters to feet or dollars to pounds or Euros. A conversion is when a website visitor goes from just looking at your pages to actually making a purchase; they convert from viewer to buyer. With the website analytics software, it will measure that conversion rate. Naturally, you want your web pages to have as high a rate as possible.

Another aspect of the software is that it can allow you to create SEO – Search Engine Optimization. This can be a very critical factor in generating hits to your website. It isn’t enough that you have the greatest website on the Internet; if people don’t know about it, you’re not going to make any money! So, by using website analytics software you can find out what keywords and what phrases connected with your product(s) get the most hits on search engines like Yahoo and Google. Now, sometimes this means playing with those keywords. As an example, if you run a travel website that specializes in cruises to the Caribbean, you might put information on your webpages where Caribbean is misspelled. That way, if people type in “Carribean” they’ll be taken to your site.

Finally, if your website gets to be quite large – perhaps you offer a full line of various products, then a single home page will not be best for SEO. Here again, website analytics software can help you to see the best sort of generic hub page to create as your main home page. It’ll mean having fewer keywords and phrases on that page, but from there you can set up sub-pages with more specific text. In essence, you’ll have multiple home pages, each devoted to particular products you offer. Thus the software is invaluable in promoting your website.