If you build a better web analytics tool, the world will beat a path to your door – that’s what I remember from the book I once read about how innovation happens. So if you want to learn about best web analytics tools 2020 or about web analytics software free, check out these free web analytics tools.
A web analytics tool is something you need to run your business successfully. I’m sure the last time you heard this; you might have felt like someone was talking about a miracle pill or weight loss diet plan. The truth is, there are good, bad and even ugly analytics tools out there. Many people refer to these tools as web analytics software.
Google Analytics (google.com/analytics) – Free
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.”
Google Analytics was the unanimous favorite of all the web analytics experts we talked to.
Yahoo Web Analytics (web.analytics.yahoo.com) – Free
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.
Crazy Egg (crazyegg.com) – $9-$99/month
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.
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.
GRAPE WEB STATISTICS
If you’ve got some programming experience, Grape Web Statistics is an open source analytics tool that was designed primarily for web developers. The simple interface takes into consideration how overwhelming Google Analytics can be and offers the basic statistics with a high level of accuracy. This does mean Grape Web Statistics misses some of the more advanced features found in the other tools we’ve mentioned.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t use them. If you have experience with developing in PHP or are at least adept with HTML, you can customize Grape Web Statistics to make the software meet all your needs. And therein lies the tool’s charm. If you’re happy with the basics, you won’t get distracted by the more advanced options. On the other hand, if you want some of the advanced features but not certain others, you can add those you need. Because Grape Web Statistics is open source rather than merely another free-to-use tool, you can use it as a foundation on which to build the web analytics tool you want and need. The essential features that are already present include tracking unique and total visits.
Theoretically, Grape Web Statistics works on any operating system (OS) but has only been officially tested on Windows and Linux. It does require that JavaScript is enabled on your OS and that you use PHP 4.3 or higher (anything below 5.6 is obsolete in any case) and MySQL 4 or greater. The main reason cited for JavaScript being a requirement is to prevent bots from wreaking havoc with Grape Web Statistics’ analysis.
HEAP ANALYTICS
Heap Analytics is a tool with a focus on user friendliness. You’ll be able to set it up with ease, allowing you to track important activity on your site without requiring any technical experience. Other than installing the tracking code onto your site, Heap works entirely on a point-and-click interface rather than using menus and settings tabs. If you want to create custom events, you can just click directly on the buttons and forms on your site and tell Heap what it is you want the tool to track for those elements.
Heap also automatically tracks monitors activity on your website (or websites if you have more than one!), analyzing it and generating a list of the most frequent events. This flexibility allows you to label and classify the activity as you wish. Heap will even do so retroactively—so if you decide to start tracking a new event, the tool will also give you statistics for that type of activity dating back to the moment the tracking code was installed.
The web analytics tool is remarkably easy to setup and use, no matter your level of expertise. It’s the exact opposite of Google Analytics regarding usability, cutting out the overwhelming stream of endless statistics and multiple screens. Heap has been designed in such a way as to actively encourage you to set up tracking and reports that will be genuinely useful based on your requirements. The Basic package is free to use and is an excellent way to start off if your site is still small and you want to test to the tool. For larger sites (or when your small site grows), you can upgrade to the Premium package. Pricing is customized according to your specific needs. The Premium package also comes with a 14-day free trial.
PaveAI
If you’ve used Google Analytics at any length, you’ve probably seen line after line of referrer spam showing up in your reports.
Many people aren’t even aware that spammers and their evil bots are visiting their websites and falsely driving up page views by hiding in the traffic reports.
PaveAI removes this “fake web traffic” from your analytic reports, thereby giving you a clear view of your traffic levels.
It works in conjunction with Google Analytics and uses the Management API to continually add new filters once referrer spam is detected.
Cost: Free
Conclusion:
Fortunately, in the digital world things are moving at a much faster pace. So don’t go spending any of your hard-earned money on expensive software for tracking your website’s analytics. That’s because there are plenty of free alternatives available online.