11 Best Web Analytics Tools: What is Web Analytics?

Web Analytics 2.0 is defined as:

1. The analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from your website and the competition

2. To drive a continual improvement of the online experience of your customers and prospects

3. Which translates into your desired outcomes (online and offline)

Web analytics 2.0 is a three-tiered data delivery and analysis service for small and big
businesses. The first is the data itself, as it measures the traffic, page views, clicks and more for
both your website and for your direct competition. The second is what you do with that data, or
how you are able to take the information gathered via these services and apply it to your
customers, whether new or existing, to make their experience meaningful and better. And the
final tier is how it all circles back together to meet your overarching business objectives, not just
online but offline as well. Data by itself is a great way to see how you are performing, but
without applying what you've learned, it has little use.

11 Best Web Analytics Tools: Clickstream Analysis Tools

Google Analytics

A completely free service that generates detailed statistics about visitors to your website, Google
Analytics is the simplest and most robust web analytics offering. Currently used by over 50% of
the top 10,000 websites in the world, according to the site's usage statistics, you can find out
where your visitors are coming from, what they're doing while on your site and how often they
come back, among many other things. As you get more involved in the site's analytics, you can
receive more detailed reports, but it's that ease of use that makes it one of the most popular
services.

"There's really only one tool for small businesses need and that's Google Analytics,"• notes
Penn. "It's so incredibly robust in terms of what it offers and if someone tells you that Google
Analytics isn't enough for a small business, then frankly they have no idea how to use it
properly."•

Yahoo Web Analytics

Once you've mastered Google Analytics, Yahoo's similar offering gives you a little more depth
in your surveying. It offers better access control options and a simpler approach to multi-site
analytics, raw and real time data collection (unlike Google, you can import cost of goods data),
visitor behavior and demographics reports and customized options as well. Yahoo Analytics is a
bit of a step up from Google in terms of profiling, filtering and customization, so for those
looking to dig a little deeper, it's a great option.
-Recommended by Whitmore, Bustos, Eisenberg
Crazy Egg

In short, Crazy Egg allows you to build heat maps and track your visitors every click based on
where they are specifically clicking within your website which is a long way of saying that
you're exploring your website's usability. It allows you to really see what parts of your site users
are finding most interesting and clicking on the most. It can help you to improve your website
design and in essence conversion. Setup is quite simple as well, and their 30-day money back
guarantee on all accounts is a nice touch.
-Recommended by Whitmore and Dershewitz

11 Best Web Analytics Tools: Competitive Intelligence Tools

Compete - Prices vary

Perhaps best known for publishing the approximate number of global visitors to the web's top
one million websites, Compete is a great complimentary tool to clickstream analytics offerings.
Compete gives you creative intelligence on what your competitors are doing or how your users
ended up on your website in the first place (what their clicks were both before and after). There
is a free offering that includes traffic volume data. But where Compete is different is in their
search analytics, a paid service that lets you track what keywords are sending users both to your
website and to your competitors.

"The deeper digital insights you have, the better understanding you have of your customer,"•
says Aaron Smolick, senior director of marketing at Compete. "By using Compete products, you
will have all of the information that you need to make educated decisions to optimize your online
campaign, increase market share and dominate the competition.
-Recommended by Dershewitz, Eisenberg and Levy

11 Best Web Analytics Tools: Experimentation and Testing Tools

Google Website Optimizer - Free

Another free tool from the folks at Google, their Website Optimizer is a complex testing service
that allows you to rotate different segments of content on your website to see which sections and
placement convert into the most clicks, and at the end of the day, the most sales. You can choose
what parts of your page you want to test, from the headline to images to text, and run
experiments to see what users respond best to. And of course, with GWO being free (you don't
even need Google Analytics to use it), it could be the only A/B (a technical term for multiple
versions of the site running at once) and Multivariate (MVT) or complex testing solution.

"While not web analytics proper, Google's Web Site Optimizer is the perfect companion to
measurement and allows small business owners to test simple (A/B) and complex (multivariate)
variations of their site, content, and landing pages using powerful statistical methodologies,"•
says Peterson. "While set-up is somewhat involved, the user interface is delightfully easy to learn
and, of course, the service is available at the best of all prices --- free.
Google Website Optimizer was another unanimous favorite from our panel of web analytics
experts.
-Recommended by all
Optimizely

A relatively new service (launched in June 2010), Optimizely is simple to use but its results can
be quite powerful. In essence, it's an easy way to measure and improve your website through
A/B testing. As a business, you can create experiments with the site's very easy-to-use visual
interface. The beautiful thing about this service is that you need absolutely zero coding or
programming background, as the tools are easy for anyone to use.
-Recommended by Whitmore and Eisenberg

11 Best Web Analytics Tools: Voice of Customer Tools

Kissinsights from Kiss Metrics

One of the easiest tools you can implement (it literally takes a one-time Javascript install), the
idea behind Kissinsights is to provide businesses with an easily implemented and customized
feedback form for website visitors. On the businesses end, you can manage all of the questions
you're asking customers through a single and simple dashboard. The best part of Kissinsights is
that your customer feedback comes in via very simplified and short comments.
-Recommended by Whitmore, Eisenberg, Levy, Steven, Fishkin and Lord

4Q by iPerceptionsA 100% free online survey solution that allows you to truly understand the
"Why"• around your website's visitors, the premise behind 4Q is basically to learn what people
are doing while on your website. Surveys are a powerful way to glean important insight from
your customer's actual experiences on your site, and they offer short and simple surveys that
answer the four key questions you want every customer to answer:

"¢ What are my visitors at my website to do?

"¢ Are they completing what they set out to do?

"¢ If not, why not?

"¢ How satisfied are my visitors?

-Recommended by Whitmore, Dershewitz, Bustos and Eisenberg

ClickTale (clicktale.com)

A qualitative customer analysis, Clicktale records every action of your website's visitors from
their first click to the last. It uses Meta statistics create visual heat maps and reports on customer
behavior, as well as providing traditional conversion analytics.
"One of the things that Google Analytics doesn't do particularly well is tell you what visitors are
paying attention to on a page and highlighting where those visitors are getting stuck during their
visit,"• says Peterson. " Clicktale is essentially a video recorder for web site visits and provides
great detail about mouse movement, scrolling, and dozens of other critical visitor behaviors."•
-Recommended by Whitmore, Peterson, Eisenberg, Steven, Fishkin and Lord

11 Best Web Analytics Tools: Social Analytics

Facebook Insights If you're using Facebook for any part of your business, this is the simplest
free offering from Mark Zuckerberg's team in terms of analytics. It provides very detailed
information about your follower counts, likes, comments on posts and more. There are two
different types of Facebook Insights, based around both users and interactions with your content.
Really, this is the best and only tool you'll need if you're using Facebook content to help
engagement with your customers.
-Recommended by Dershewitz, Peterson and Bustos

Twitalyzer
The most complete application for measuring impact, engagement and influence on your Twitter
usage, Twitalyzer is a free analytics dashboard with detailed metrics. Similar to Facebook
Insights, Twitalyzer gives a higher view of your account's impact on customers, based on
followers, retweet level, how often an account replies and engages in conversation, and more.
Simplicity is key here, as you can just look up a Twitter username and get instant information.
-Recommended by Peterson and Bustos

There are plenty of additional analytics options out there, including Piwik, Feedburner, Percent
Mobile, Mongoose Metrics, AdWords, Klout, Topsy and plenty more. It really depends on what
you want to focus on most with your business and that's what you need to analyze before digging
into this process, but these cheap tools are a great place to start.