Web Analytics and Increasing Web Traffic

In this chapter you will learn about
●  Increase Website Traffic Free
●  Web Analytics  Tools
●  Free Tools To Increase Website Traffic 
●  How to Increase Web Traffic Google 
●  Increase Website Traffic Hack
●  Types of Web Analytics 
●  Benefits of Web Analytics 
●  Web Analytics Examples 
●  why Use Web Analytics ?
●  What Makes a Good Web Analytics Program?
●  What can you expect form Web Analytics Programs?
●  Web Traffic 
●  Understanding Website Traffic 
●  Difference Between Free vs Paid Traffic 
●  Advantages and Disadvantages of Free Traffic
●  Advantage and Disadvantages of Paid Traffic 
●  Which Why Paid Traffic or Free Traffic?


Web Analytics is the process of analyzing the behavior of visitors to a Website. The use of web analytics is said to enable a business to attract more visitors, retain or attract new customers for goods or services, or to increase the Rupee ( or to that matter any currency) volume each customer spends.


Why Use Web Analytics?:

Your customer has an itch and your website needs to be able to scratch that itch. Knowing exactly how to do that is the key to getting visitors to take action on your site. You can use information gathered from web analytics to maximize revenues from Pay-per-click advertising, improve click-through on email campaigns, or even increase your search engine ranking. The possibilities are endless.

In its most basic from ,web analytics monitors traffic on your website. The information gathered can show you who your visitors are, where they exited your site,etc. The best web analytics programs can tell you this , and then some. They can calculate ROI based on campaign goals and monitor social meida sites like Twitter and Facebook for chatter about your brand.

So why should ypu be interested in this information? Well the only reason your website exists is to prompt someone to take a particular action. This action may be making a purchase, clicking on a link, reading an article,  referring a  friend; whatever.  How do you know if your site is meeting that goal? Can you meet your goals more efficiently or effectively? Do you need to change your game plan ? Don't guess at these answers, know them.

The greatest benefit of web analytics is having the information you need to make better decisions about your website.


What Makes a Good Web Analytics Program?:

Web analytics is essentially the study of website visitor behavior. No matter which solution you decided to use,you want the ability to categories the collected information in any way you see fit. You also want a good deal of abstraction, so you can focus on the important stuff without having to fight through the clutter. At the end of the day you want information specifically tailored for your website. Everything else is just garbage.

What Can you expect from Web analytics Programs?


Features:

       Each web analytics programs offers a variety of features to help you understand your website visitors better. This section offers a top level view of several features that will be useful in measuring your website traffic. 

Traffic:

     Web analytics keep track of a large variety of very detailed information regarding who visits a website, what each visitor does on the site ( what they click on, pages they view,etc.) and at what point they exit the website.

Referrals:

According to the web Analytics Association, a referrer is the page URL that originally generated the request for the current page view or object. Essentially this is where your guest came from immediately before arriving on your website.

Report Stat Intervals:

Web traffic and other statistics are only useful if they are measurable, and that implies setting applicable date ranges. Whatever you need yearly or monthly reports,or details down to the day or hour it's importaning dates and the accompanying stats.

Events:

According to the Web Analytics Association, an event is any logged or recorded action that has a specific date and time assigned to it by either the browser or server.

Visitor Details:

Web analytic programs keep track of each visitor to your site. This information can be used to identify target audiences, develop campaigns  or learn what might work better to increase conversions. Detailed geographic information about where the visitor is accessing the website from is also available in most cases.


File Exporting:

After you compile stacks of data what do you do with it ? Most web analytics programs offer a variety exporting options to meet your specific needs.


Tech Support/Help:

Web analytics are very complex. Choosing which one to use on your site is only the first of many steps so look a solution that offers product support for a period of time following the initial purchase. 

Here are some of the top tools that you can use to gain more understanding about your website traffic. 

(1)   Google Analytics: 

Google Analytics is one of the best free tools that any website owner can use to track and analyze data about Web traffic. You get to see what keywords are bringing the most visitors to your pages and what aspects of your designs are turning them off. This tool will generate a report for your website that includes information about visitors traffic sources,  goals, content and e-commerce. The downside of Google Analytics is that it can take time to update. ( The real-time version is still in beta testing.) There are other tools that offer real-time updates of your datanow.


(2)   Spring Metrics:

Spring Metrics has taken the analytics tool and made it simpler. You don't have to be a professional data-miner to get the answer to your questions. You get real-time conversion analytics, top converting sources, keyword analytics, landing-page analytics, e-mail performance reports and simple point-and-click configuration. Unlike Google Analytics, Spring Metrics tracks a visitor path through your website from the time he landed to the time he left. All of this is included in spring Metrics standard plan for $49 a month. When you first sign up, you get to try it free for 14 days. The simplicity of this tool a lot of website owners switching over from Google Analytics. 


(3)  Woopra:

Woopra is another tool that offers real time analytics tracking, whereas Google Analytics can take hours to uodate. It is a dekstop application that feeds you live visitor stats, including where they live what pages they are on now where they've been on your site and their web browser. You also have the ability to chat live with individual site visitors. This can be a great feature for your e-commerce site to interact with customers. Woopra offers a limited freebie plan as well as several paid options.


(4)   Clicky:

Clicky also offers a free service if you have only one website and a pro account for a monthly fee. You get real-time analytics, including Spy view which lets you observe what current visitors are doing on your site. Clicky's dashboard is simple to use and presents all the information you want to see clearly. They also have a mobile version that makes it easy for you to check your stats anywhere. 

(5)   Mint:

Mint is an analytics tool that is self-hosted and costs $30 per website. You get the benefit of real-time stats, which you don't get with the free Google Analytics. You can track site visitors, where they are coming fron and what pages they are viewing. And Peppermill, a part of Mint, lets you makes any adjustments to make ot more compatible for your use with tons of free add-ons.


(6)   Chartbeat: 

Chartbeat lets users get the most from their data with instant information. They keep constant watch on your visitors and what they are doing on your website. This gives you the information you need in order to make the adjustments necessary to your content or design. You get a free month when you sign up and after that plans start at $9.95 per month. 


Web Traffic :

Once, you have an in-depth web analytics report in your hand, what do you do ?
Study it in detail and use that information for increasing web traffic or increase sale, etc. Your report may say 60% people exit the website from the checkout page. Why aren't they making the payment? Based on this info you can take a development decision that you want the email ids of the visitors to be captured at this page, so ypu can send a marketing email for them to checkout and make payment. 
Based on the report, you may choose methods of advertising,  seo, social media marketing, email marketing,  viral marketing,  online PR, etc. to increase the web traffic. Your report even share the figures for paid versus organic search or clicks.


Understanding Website Traffic:

Online businesses and websites thrive on trafic. That is the number of people visiting as well as purchasing services or products being offered. As such, it is critical for every website owner to have a strategy of generating targeted traffic to their site or business if they are to be successful. 
For starters, there are two kinds of websites traffic 

Difference Between Free vs. Paid Traffic :

Free traffic is monthly generated through social media or search ening optimization. That is generating organic traffic through optimizing your blog, content or website for Search Engines results pages hence have traffic from the search engine directed to your site. 

Free traffic can also be generated through social media by linking your site to social media platforms and building great profiles. The people visiting and interacting with you through these profiles can then visit your site for more details or make

actual purchase. Free traffic can also be generated through article and video marketing, among other strategies. 

On the other hand, paid traffic involves making payments to have traffic diverted to your site. This includes strategies such as Pay Per Click  (PPC) where an ad platform is paid to host your ad and you are only pay for each click on the ads that eventually generates traffic to your site by redirecting the visitors. Ad words are an example of paid traffic. 


Advantages and Disadvantages of Free Traffic:

Although many people hold the perception that free traffic is the best for the simple reason that it costs nothing, this is not the absolute truth.

There are two sides to this kind of traffic.

Advantages:

●   IT IS FREE :

This means that you do not need to spend any money to have people visiting your site. All you need is a good strategy that may include good content or incorporation of good SEO tactics on your site.

●   IT IS LESS DEMANDING:

Free traffic campaigns are not as demanding aa paid traffic campaigns and can therefore be left for a couple of days even as you continue to enjoy good traffic flow.

●   TRAFFIC FLOW CAN CONTINUE LONG AFTER YOU HAVE STOPPED THE CAMPAIGN:

For instance, when you do a good SEO campaign and get your site at the top of search engine results, you can rest assured of having traffic long after you have stopped the campaign. This is simply beacuse of its ranking. 

Disadvantages:

●   FREE TRAFFIC CAN BE TIME WASTING IF NOT WELL MANAGED:

This is beacuse strategies like SEO content generation require a lot of effort. 

●   SUCCESS IS NOT GUARANTEED:

Sometimes your efforts may not generate any results. 


Advantages and Disadvantages of Paid Traffic:

Just like free traffic, there are advantages and disadvantages that are associated with paid traffic. 

Advantages:

●   YOU GET TRAFFIC FAST:

With paid traffic, it does not take long before you start seeing the results. Thus ,you can end up spending very little or even test the campaign before you commit more money. 

●   IT IS EASIER TO REACH YOUR TARGET MARKET:

This is one of the selling points of paid traffic as you reach your targeted market effortlessly through specific keywords.

Disadvantages:

●   IT CAN BE COSTLY:

In some instances, you may end up spending a tidy sum of money before you actually make money. That is, while you may get traffic  the conversion rate may be low.

●   YOU MAY HAVE TO WAIT:

This means you may have to wait for payout before running more traffic. 

Which Why, Paid Traffic or Free Traffic?


Having understood the difference between free and paod traffic as well as the advantages and disadvantages of both, you may be wondering which one is best for your website or business. Before making that decision, it is important to understand that none is better than the other beacuse each of them has the capability of delivering desired results. 

So then how do you decide what is best for you ? Your choice can be guided by one major factor,  and that is your budget. If your budget cannot allow you to spend on advertising, then you will do well to stick to free traffic. Even then, ensure that you employ good strategies for better results. 

From Chapter 12 to 22 of this book, there are many tools provided to increase the website traffic.