Web Analytics

Web Analytics constitutes the techniques used to collect/analyze usage information of a website or related interfaces to improvise usability and customer satisfaction as a goal. Say, an organization just launched a new product and they want to see how successful there marketing had been to drive users to new product information page, web analytics is the answer to such scenarios. Typically a successful web analytics solutions will be helpful to formulize online strategies with least efforts and cost involved.

Typically, all the web analytics tools available today in market either study the server logs or require special JavaScript tags to be added in each and every page and some service is called on each event. In either case, owner of the application may be interested in location, interest, clicks, flow used to reach target page, time duration of the visit etc. by the visitor of the application. These are the inputs that may be used to improvise the application. An intelligent and successful web analytics solution must go one step ahead and based on above observations, will be giving suggestions to the owner of website, how to use this information in better manner.

A web developer must be keep up to date with available options, which he may suggest while the application is being designed. Based on budget and man power available to monitor application, right strategy must be used and implemented. If the stakeholders go for a different web analytics solution at later stages of development, this might involve a lot of rework and put extra pressure on timelines and budget of the project.

Web Analytics Solutions

Free Analytics Tools

• Google Analytics
• Google Website Optimizer
• Piwik
• Open Web Analytics
• Site Meter
• Stat Counter
• Webalizer
• Analog
• Awstats
• Prosper 202

Cheap Paid Analytics Tools

• Clicky
• Mint
• WordTracker's Strategizer
• Adblock Analytics
• Screaming Frog

Affordable Business Analytics Tools

• Weblog Expert
• Clicktale
• Crazy Egg
• Visual Website Optimizer

SEO Update Tracking

• Not Provided Count
• Chart Intelligence
• Panguin Tool
• Sistrix Google Updates
• Algo update history

General Search Marketshare Stats

• StatCounter
• Clicky
• Experian / Hitwise
• NetMarketshare
• comScore & Compete.com also offer marketshare stats

Usability Feedback

• User Testing
• Feedback Army
• Silverback
• Users Think
• UX Project Checklist

Expensive / Enterprise Premium Tools

• Google Analytics Premium
• Adobe Marketing Cloud
• WebTrends
• comScore's Digital Analytix Suite
• IBM's Coremetrics

Recent Advancements

• Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP):  In October 2015, Google introduced AMP, which may help better serve the mobile users and improve Google ranking.
• Instant Articles by Facebook: This allows content owners to upload entire stories, and users to read them, without leaving the Facebook site.
• Transparency by Government in the Analytics: Government online practices are improving now and they are releasing even more behind the scene data using analytics tools.
• NewsLynx: With launch of this tool, burden of manually collecting and aggregating analytics may be off loaded to this tools and faster growth & innovation is expected.
•  Google Calculated Metrics: Rather than downloading offline usage data and manipulating using custom formulas, with improvements in Google analytics, this may be done with less efforts using Calculated Metrics.
• Need to track social platforms: There was a time when Google was the only giant being considered to drive traffic, but these day various social platforms are being equally important. So the need to improve and track traffic from social platforms is ever increasing since last few years.
• Single page Applications: There was a time when visiting one page to another was the only way to fetch content from server in a website, but with advancement like angularJS, single page applications are becoming more popular, so the way page visits are recorded have changed with time.
• Video Analytics: With better bandwidth and internet speed, now more ideas may be floated around the web using video content, so the need and ability to track video content has grown these days.

References

Kanik, A. (2015, December 23). A look back at this year's biggest advances in analytics. Retrieved April 24, 2016, from https://ijnet.org/en/blog/look-back-years-biggest-advances-analytics

Losowsky, A. (2015, October 16). What makes us different. Retrieved April 24, 2016, from https://coralproject.net/makes-us-different/

SEO Book. (2013). Web Analytics Tools. Retrieved April 24, 2016, from http://tools.seobook.com/analytics-tools/

Zheng, J. G., & Peltsverger, S. (2015). Web Analytics Overview. Retrieved April 24, 2016, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272815693_Web_Analytics_Overview