Web Analytics: Knowing Your Visitors

Website Design

Depending on your strategy and the specific goals of your website, the success of your site can be quantified and improved over time by using web analytics. Web analytics monitors traffic on your site so you can determine who visited your site, where they came from, what pages they visited, how long they stayed on a page, the type of device they used, and where they exited the site. This data can then be used to maximize the revenue generated by your site, improve your search engine rankings, determine the effectiveness of promotions, and much more.

Once you launch your website, you should start immediately measuring your visitor’s behavior so your site design can be optimized and your site can perform better in terms of getting users take the actions that you want. Your web designer can help you choose the best web analytics tool for your particular site and strategy. Google Analytics, Chartbeat, and Statcounter are examples of web analytics tools you can use to monitor your site’s activity.

You will learn how many hits you are getting per day, the length of each session, page flow, unique versus returning visitors, location, bounce rates, and other useful data that will allow your designer to improve the performance of your site and the overall user experience.

Here are some examples of design changes that might be made to your site based on site analytics.

  • Modify a page’s content to bring important content to the top (above the fold)
  • Add more Call-to-Action statements
  • Add more internal links to content that is not being viewed
  • Minimize external links (e.g., social media) that take users away from your site
  • Emphasize the design to focus on mobile, tablet, or desktop users
  • Add more interesting, attention-grabbing content and graphics to the landing page
  • Modify your SEO parameters to better target your ideal customers
  • Add content specifically addressing target users to increase engagement