It's all about tracking - top tips to make the most of your web analytics tool

As you may know if you read my posts, I'm usually quite keen when it comes to web analytics. One of the main reasons why I work in online marketing is because everything is measurable, and there's nothing better than knowing that your marketing efforts are working (or if not, discover what's wrong).

• Which analytics tool?

While some products like WebTrends provide you with a huge amount of data, they can be tricky to set up, especially if you go for a server side installation. There are dozens of reporting tools available on the market, and the choice usually lies on bugdets and resources.
However, we can all thank Google for giving us Google Analytics. Although this free system has its limitations (only 4 goals per profile), it is really straightforward to use and will allow any internet enthusiast to find out more about what's happening on their website in an almost real time basis. it is a tried and tested product based on the old Urchin platform and is a great tool to get started in web analytics.

• Tips for web analytics beginners
  

Nowadays, it is crucial for any online business to understand visitors behaviour in order to achieve marketing objectives and improve user experience. One of the common pitfalls is to collect too much data and not knowing what to do with it, so here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Establish clear business/marketing objectives for the website
2. Select the right web analytics tool for your business
3. Define internet metrics based on these objectives
4. Set up your web analytics tool to capture data for these specific metrics
5. Gather data and present it in a simple, easy to understand format (build a web dashboard)
6. Review performance against marketing targets and change website accordingly
7. Go back to step 4 and repeat the process as regularly as possible
   

That's it for today, have a good weekend!