In this article I am going to talk about the best tools that will help you to measure your website’s performance. In addition, I will also provide a free tool that will allow you to see how well your website is performing and what changes you can make to improve it.
Web analytics tools are amazing. They tell you which pages are getting the most visits, what content people are reading, where they’re coming from, how many blogs posts you have, your bounce rate etc. If you want to improve your site you should know what these analytic tools are telling you.
Woopra
Woopra is another tool that offers real-time analytics tracking, whereas Google Analytics can take hours to update. It is a desktop application that feeds you live visitor stats, including where they live, what pages they are on now, where they’ve been on your site and their Web browser. You also have the ability to chat live with individual site visitors. This can be a great feature for your e-commerce site to interact with customers. Woopra offers a limited freebie plan as well as several paid options.
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.
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.
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.
Optimizely (optimizely.com) – $19-$399/month
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.
HISTATS
Another fantastic web analytics tool that rivals Google Analytics is Histats. The tool can give you statistics on what pages are being visited, as well as the referral process that led them there—whether they found your site on a SERP or followed a backlink. All statistics are offered in real time, of course.
Histats uses an Invisible/Visible GIF/Flash based counter to gather metrics for up to 10 million hits a day. You won’t be limited to using the tool on only one website either—you have the freedom to manage as many as three hundred, allowing you to keep track of how your competitors are performing too. Histats also provides logs, which webmasters and site owners can use in comparing campaign statistics.
Unlike most other free (and even some of the premium) web analytics tools on the market, Histats allows you to retain your amalgamated data for an unlimited period. Most tools have a limit set, usually for a year or two at best. With Histats, your analytics information can still be accessed 10+ years later.
Because Histats provides real time statistics, the tool promises to be fast and is built on a reliable network. The developers guarantee 99.99% uptimes, and more than 1,500,000,000 hits are tracked on a monthly basis for free. The analytics offered include a breakdown of recent visitors, your most active visitors, popular pages, referrers, and geolocations.
Histats also includes the browser your visitors are using to view your site, as well as what toolbars and hardware are being used. If your site is multilingual, Histats will even segregate the statistics according to the language of your visitors.
HUBSPOT
For an online marketing analysis service with a focus on your social media and other marketing platforms, Hubspot is one of the best. The web analytics tool relates your marketing to leads, Return on Investment (ROI), and search queries. This means that when you analyze your site using Hubspot, you’re getting a full breakdown of the site’s performance on every level.
Hubspot allows you to use a drag and drop method for polishing your website pages and email templates, and all the templates provided are immediately responsive. With a well-planned nod toward SEO tool integration, the analytics platform also allows you to monitor and adjust your optimization and sharing in real time, helping you get your content exposed to the right people at the right time. You’ll also be able to push your key landing pages by integrating the design of calls-to-action that bring your site visitors’ attention to these sections.
The design integration capabilities of Hubspot also allow you to polish your landing pages to maximize your traffic to sales conversion. You can also set up “drip” campaigns that help you turn leads into customers with smart email marketing. Hubspot doesn’t offer these at the expense of traditional analytics though. You’ll still receive data on how every visitor to your site interacts with your content, regardless of whether they’re browsing your e-commerce platform or reading through the blog section. All this information is, of course, applicable for integration into your marketing schemes.
You can start off with their free package, but as your business grows you’ll certainly want to upgrade to the premium package starting at $200 per month.
There are a lot of different things you can do with your website to improve your user experience, but one way to make it better is by using Analytics. It has been around for a long time and it is probably the most important tool you could be using as a webmaster or as an online entrepreneur with a website!