Web analytics software enables you to see how many visitors your site is getting, where they are coming from and what they are doing while they browse your site. Using this software enables you to do several things:

• Learn how users interact with your site
• Learn how users found your site
• Measure the success of your promotional efforts
• Revise and optimize your promotional efforts

Basic web analytics programs are usually included with your hosting plan. More advanced analytics programs can be purchased from a variety of vendors.  An excellent web analytics program is offered by Google.com free of charge. Understanding the various data provided by a web analytics program is essential for understanding certain facts about your site visitors.

§         Unique visitors – number of unique visitors who visit a site in a given time period

§         Page views – how many web pages were served in a given time period

§         Hits – Any request made to the server which is logged, is considered a ‘hit’. The requests can be for anything… html pages, graphic images, audio files, CGI scripts, etc. Not a very precise or useful statistic.

§         Browser/operating system - the type of browser and operating system used to visit your site – ie. Internet explorer/WinXP or Safari/Mac or Mozilla Firefox/Win2000

§         Referrer – the site they clicked from to visit your site

§         Search term – the keyword entered in a search engine to arrive at your site.

§         Entry/exit pages

§         Most viewed pages

More advanced programs allow you to track, measure and gather more information about your visitors. These are especially pertinent for an e-commerce site, where it is essential to measure data about the success of your marketing campaigns. These programs measure the following key metrics about your site and/or about a particular campaign, such as an e-mail campaign or Google advertising campaign.

§         ROI: Return on Investment – sales as a result of a particular campaign

§         CPA: Cost per Acquisition – cost of acquiring one customer

§         Conversion Ratio – percentage of visitors that result in a sale, typically between 1-4%.

§         Click trails, path analysis – the path a visitor follows on your site

§         E-commerce funnel – where visitors leave site during checkout

§         Goal tracking – track a particular goal, such as purchase or e-mail list sign-up

Some advanced web analytics providers:
google.com/analytics, indextools.com, onestat.com, livestats.com, webtrends.com, omniture.com