What are the best web analytics tools free? Analyzing traffic to a website is an integral part of any business. If you want your site to run effectively, you need to be able to track your users’ interactions as well as their behavior as they go from one page to another then off your site and into the cyber sunset. In other words, if you want to make sure that your efforts will pay off, you need to analyze website visitor data.
Whether you want to boost your web stats, track conversions or boost user engagement, this list of free website analytics tools can help you do just that. Why spend thousands of dollars on expensive software when you can get the same productivity from these great free website analytics tools?
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.
Kissmetrics
Kissmetrics is another analytics tool that allows clients to track the movements of individual visitors throughout their websites. You can see how behaviors change over time, identify patterns and see the most typical and recent referrers, among other stats. It offers a “Timeline View” of visitor activity in an easy-to-understand visual format. You can try this service free for 30 days. Plans start at $149 a month, depending on how many events are tracked.
UserTesting
UserTesting.com is a unique way to gather information about site users. You are paying for a group of participants of your choosing to perform a set of tasks on your site. The user and his activity will be recorded on video. In about an hour, you will have your feedback. You get to hear the actual thoughts of users in your target demographic. The cost is $39 per participant you choose. You may choose anywhere from 1 to 100 testers.
Crazy Egg
Crazy Egg uses the power of Heatmap technology to give you a visual picture of what site visitors are doing on your Web pages. It shows you where people are moving their mouse on the page and where they click. There is a link between where people put the mouse and where they are moving their eyes. So, this kind of tracking helps you see what areas are catching the most attention and interaction from users. There is a free one-month trial with this service, and prices start at $9 month for 10 Heatmaps.
Compete (compete.com) – 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.
Google Website Optimizer (google.com/websiteoptimizer) – 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.
AT INTERNET: WEB ANALYTICS
If you’re looking for an advanced web analytics tool that makes it easy for you to view, analyze, and act on your website’s data, then AT Internet: Web Analytics may be the solution for you. Analytics features offered include data on site navigation, traffic reports, an indication of the sources visitors use to reach your site (as well as how they interact with it), the type of device they’re using to browse, and what their geolocation is. You’ll also be able to measure the way your site visitors use rich media content.
Your site’s performance and uptime are monitored too, and you can get a complete breakdown of how individual online marketing campaigns are performing. AT Internet’s focus on behavioral analysis is particularly suited to helping you define your target audience and plan your marketing and content accordingly.
While we’re talking about online marketing, email campaigns are quite popular as well. Google Analytics doesn’t track and analyze site traffic initiated through these campaigns, but AT Internet’s Web Analytics most certainly does. ClickZone is a proprietary technology used by AT Internet to help improve your user experience through a combination of heat maps and overlay.
Despite being rather advanced, AT Internet’s analytical features are presented intuitively to make for easy navigation. You’ll also be able to set up customized metrics. Contact AT Internet to request a demo and discuss pricing.
AWSTATS
Considered one of the best web analytics tools available online, AWStats defines visitors according to their user agent (browser type, for example, Google Chrome) and IP address. This means that only real visitors are logged, and robots like GoogleBot are not counted as visitors. This is incredibly important if you want accurate results, as website crawlers and other bots will give a false boost to your site’s statistics.
AWStats analyzes a surprising amount of information, including log files from HTTP, FTP servers, and streaming media. The output is incredibly user-friendly, with the primary interface comprised of a single page separated into sections. This categorization allows users to differentiate between daily visits, search terms, a list of referrers (whether the visitor found your page via a search engine results page—SERP—or through a backlink on another site), and so much more. The statistics page is automatically updated daily, but you also have the option of viewing your traffic reports in a monthly or annual format.
Of course, no web analytics tool is completely perfect—especially not those that are available from open sources, like AWStats. The tool doesn’t provide sufficiently in-depth analysis of your data, unfortunately, nor does it track exactly how users are interacting with your site. Still, considering that the software is available free of charge, AWStats remains a worthy alternative to Google Analytics. In fact, AWStats is so viable that many hosting providers offer it as a pre-installed tool in cPanel packages. While you may not want to use it alone, it makes for a charming addition to run alongside another web analytics tool.
Conclusion:
It’s no secret: the more you know about how people use your website, the better. Web analytics tools let you look at everything from how people get to your website (the referrer) to what pages they’re spending the most time on to whether they’re on their mobile device or desktop computer.