Everything You Need To Know About Web Analytics Tools


Understanding and evaluating your website traffic is essential to creating a better user experience. When the user experience is high quality, it’s easier to convert potential customers into current and future ones. A pleasant design, smooth path-to-conversion points, and other factors all work together to create a better overall experience that customers can enjoy. Part of making a difference in this regard is using web analytics tools to help guide and inform your website’s design. In this article, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about web analytics tools and how enhanced site design can help you thrive while creating fresh conversions down the line. 

What Are Web Analytics Tools?

Web analytics tools are a comprehensive set of software tools that allow you to collect data, examine it, and make decisions based on that data. Using web analytics Tools in combination with other assessment tools like heat maps can help you figure out ways to enhance the user experience on your website, implement important feedback, smooth out any problem points, and eventually create conversion opportunities along the way. These tools can be as simple as session recorders, scroll mapping, mouse movement indicators, and data visualization tools. They can also integrate into any system, providing flexibility for your analysis needs. 

What Metrics Do They Measure?

Want to know how far users are scrolling into a website? Interested in tracking where they click with their mouse or understanding what links they’re thinking about checking? How about understanding which pages are leading to more conversions or seem to be areas where users spend more time? Want to know where users are making conversions and where they’re suddenly dropping off? Are you interested in immediate results about what your users love and what frustrates them? How about the navigation and quality of your user interface or understanding traffic sources? What about click through rates and page views? These are all things your web tools can measure. You can also get both on and off site analytics, making a web analytics tool a versatile addition to any data analysis toolbox.

How They Work

Web analytical tools are marvels of modern computer coding. They often get inserted on the back end of a website’s code and have a dashboard from which users can assess data, enter variables, and make changes based on data. A small snippet of the web code gets inserted into your page and then gets to work without impacting the site’s loading speed or operations. As it anonymously records data throughout the user’s experience, it transmits that data back to you so you can assess it freely. A high quality web analytics tool engages in passive user testing as it records every interaction on your website, providing valuable information without any noticeable impact on the customer experience, website operation, or potential conversions.

How They Help Create Conversions

Whether you’re running an e-commerce operation, B2B, providing a service, quality leads and high conversion rates are crucial when it comes to selling a product. Incorporating conversion funnel statistics, heatmap data, and form feedback/responses into your web analytics package will enable you to see what’s working, implement any optimization you might need, and lead you to every opportunity to improve your conversion rates over time. It’s just a matter of paying attention to the insights you’re receiving, listening to your customers, and ultimately making better business decisions using data. 

How They Help You Remain Compliant

When it comes to privacy and protecting users’ sensitive data, compliance standards are a pretty big deal. But what does it mean to be compliant? Compliance standards really cover the privacy and security of data from your customers. As you acquire and accumulate data, it’s important to be able to get that data without violating the privacy of the individuals on your website. Most web analytics software allows you to mask or block IPs so that you have an idea of the general location of the customer without any specific details. Furthermore, GDPR compliance standards need to be implemented across the board in order to maintain compliance. You also need to be able to protect the data after you get it from falling into the wrong hands. Utilizing a combination of highly trained personnel and secure web analytics tools, you can maintain compliance across all aspects of your data gathering process and keep your customers and potential customers safe. Compliance also aids in preventing fraud and other issues that would potentially affect your conversion rates.