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Everything Brands Need to Know About Website Analytics

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Imagine that your best friend just opened a new store.

What’s the first thing that you’re going to ask them when they swing by after work to enjoy a glass of wine?

“How many people showed up? What did you sell?”

It's a natural question, given the amount of money your friend invested in setting up that business. Hopefully, they had a good day so that they can earn back part of that investment.

In fact, they might be able to use the very answer to your question to get more business.

Perhaps their foot traffic increased after running advertising. Or they shared that visitors like to buy cold drinks in the afternoon. Because they've noticed these patterns, your friend continues to test out ad campaigns, and puts a few extra sodas in the cooler after lunchtime.

Just like your friend makes adjustments based on their experiences and data collected in their store, you can do the same thing with your business website.

Almost every interaction between your website and your visitors can be measured and tracked. These analytics can be a goldmine if you want to invest in promoting your website and improving customer experience.

Wondering how to use website analytics to increase your business performance? We break it all down here. 


What Is Website Analytics?

Website analytics is the art and science of analyzing website data to understand and improve your traffic, user experience, and commercial results. You can use a variety of sources to collect this data.

Many website analytics products use a piece of JavaScript code to track visitors. For example, Google’s website analytics product requires you to install some code on every page of your website. Whenever someone loads the page in a web browser, this script is triggered and sends a small "packet" of information back to Google.

This data packet contains information about what the user viewed, how long they viewed it, and how quickly the web server loaded it. Google's tag can also be set up to record specific events, such as clicking on a link to another website or interacting with a photo carousel.

Google receives this steady stream of activity reports and compiles it into a handy dashboard for you to look at. Multiple clicks from a single visitor are organized into a session. Since visitors may come to your site more than once, Google sorts these sessions into groups to identify unique visitors.

They unpack cues about where that visitor came from, what content they looked at, and what kind of technology they were using. Google Analytics organizes this information into a series of reports for you to browse through.

In some cases, an analytics tool can integrate information from web scraping and other offsite sources into this analysis.

For example, Google Analytics can connect with Google’s Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and advertising data to enrich your understanding of the customer.

It can even compare your website's performance to similar websites in your industry. These tools give you a comprehensive view of your website's impact on the world.


Why Website Analytics Are Important

The fun part about running a brand is you can create stories and tell them to the world.

You're also accountable for making sure those stories come true in the form of attracting customers and generating sales.

The same logic applies to earning back the money you invest in your website. You’re going to need a certain amount of traffic to justify that investment. More importantly, you need to see some of these visitors turn into customers. So, where are your paying customers coming from?

A good website analytics program allows you to answer these questions and change course when things aren’t working. Sometimes these results will surprise you. You may learn your website is attracting a very different audience than you initially expected.


How Companies Use Website Analytics

Companies use website analytics to understand many different things about their website's usability, their customers and their interests, most popular pages, and more.

For example, say a puzzle website catered to young moms, but then noticed that one of their new games was attracting a different audience: seniors. This realization prompted some quick changes in page layout and topic choices to appeal to their new fans.

You can gain a lot from reviewing your website’s results with an analytics expert or digital agency. Since many website analytics tools allow you to drill down into the data to see the details, it's easy to dig into the trends and discuss them as a team.

Let's jump into some of the most commonly used website analytics metrics and what you can use them for.


Common Web Analytics Metrics

1. Metrics to Understand Traffic Trends

Traffic trends are an excellent place to start your review, particularly if you compare recent results with prior periods. Be sure to adjust your view for any swings based on the day of the week or seasonal traffic patterns. This kind of data can show you how large your current audience is. Some standard traffic metrics are:

  • number of unique visitors
  • number of unique sessions 

From there, I suggest examining a few metrics to understand the user experience.


2. User Experience Metrics

When visitors come to the website, do they engage with the content and convert into buyers? This is something you can often improve with A/B testing. Standard user experience metrics include:

  • Average Time on Site – How many minutes does a visitor spend looking at your website?
  • Bounce Rate – How often do people look at a single web page and immediately leave?
  • Conversion Rate – How often do visitors reach a specific goal in your marketing funnel?

3. Technical Performance Metrics

You can also take a peek at your website’s technical performance. Modern users expect your website to load quickly, particularly on a mobile phone.

The good news is speed problems are easy to spot with a little testing and easily fixed by a web design agency or developer.

Keep an eye on:

  • Page Load Time – How long does it take to load the web page completely
  • Document Interactive Time – How long does it take for a user to interact with a page?

Most analytics tools let you drill down into smaller segments of your traffic and compare results. This is a great way to compare how different pieces of content perform. Do the same for referral sources, user locations, and other browser technologies.

You may spot opportunities to redesign key elements of your website, adjust your advertising budget to get better results or increase your investment in top-performing content.

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The 4 Best Web Analytics Tools

We’ll walk you through four of the most popular website analytics tools. Each of these website analytics examples offers a different perspective on your website and digital brand's performance.


Tool 1: Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the most popular website analytics tools on the internet. You can analyze website performance by traffic source, content, web browser technology, and user geography.

The most addictive feature of Google Analytics is real-time monitoring, where you can see how many people are currently using the site. You can access all of this information from your desktop or their handy cell phone app.

If you grant additional permissions, Google Analytics can integrate with other Google products, including Google Ads, Google AdSense, and Google Webmaster Tools.

Connecting these different products will give you access to audience demographics and search data.

The platform also collects data on how quickly your web pages load and allows you to track these statistics over time. This feature is handy when you try to solve a technical issue since you can match these performance changes to when your code went live.

Designed with beginners in mind, Google Analytics provides an easy way to track website traffic and user experience. The basic version is free. A more advanced corporate version is available, as well.

Overall, the tool offers a nice balance of being easy to use with advanced features under the hood.


Tool 2: Google Lighthouse

Google Lighthouse is a feature in the Chrome web browser that gives you an in-depth view of your site’s technical performance. The results appear as an overall score and a list of suggested improvements.

Google Lighthouse uses data from multiple sources.

It blends a real-time analysis of the current web page with historical tracking data from other Chrome browser users. It also runs diagnostics on accessibility (making your website usable for people with disabilities), SEO items, and technical best practices.

While you won't use this every day, Lighthouse helps ensure that your technical elements are on point.


Tool 3: Semrush

Our next website analytics tool doesn't actually touch your website.

Instead, Semrush tracks how your website appears in search results. You can use this tool to see what search terms a website ranks for and how its organic search engine traffic has shifted over time.

While it may not directly analyze all aspects of your site, your search performance is a good indicator of how your site is performing. For example, your website architecture will impact how well you rank in SERPs. 

For brands that want to grow their organic search traffic, Semrush can help you focus on the right targets. Their keyword research tool shows you the different variations of a topic that people search for. It also can provide some perspective on how difficult it will be to rank for a specific term.

Finally, it will show you what terms competing websites are targeting. You can combine these insights to focus your content strategy on your team's topics best positioned to win.
For an extra charge, Semrush has a competitive intelligence package that you can use to analyze competitors in more detail.

For example, you can see where their traffic comes from, what types of advertising they run, and which pieces of content are performing well. These are insights you can use to improve your own content selections and digital marketing strategy.


Tool 4: Hotjar

If digital marketing was golf, Hotjar is your putter. Hotjar is a tool you use to help make small design changes that can significantly impact your digital marketing score.

You can record user sessions, see where they clicked, and collect feedback on your website. Hotjar can help you understand why a user made a particular decision and guide your design and product improvement efforts.

They’re not the only product in this space. Crazy Egg has many similar features. Use these tools when you’re ready to dig deep into your user experience to optimize how people move through your website.


Mistakes to Avoid with Website Analytics

While data is powerful, context is critical.

From a marketing and user experience perspective, there are a lot of moving parts here. Your customer's usage patterns can shift based on the time of year, day of the week, or news events.

For example, you probably shouldn't get too excited about a big jump in conversions during the fourth quarter (due to holiday shopping) but might want to take a closer look if sales spike in January.

Unless, of course, you're selling self-help guides for New Year's resolutions, in which case the opposite trend is more appropriate.

Always balance what you see in the data with a common-sense perspective on how the business works.

Along the same lines, beware of “vanity metrics” that don’t directly drive business results.

Never confuse being popular with being profitable.

While it may sound great to have lots of followers and visitors, these aren't the same as generating sales.

Focus on understanding which audience members are most likely to turn into customers and position your content and marketing to reach out to these prospects.


What Brands Need to Know About Website Analytics: Final Thoughts

The most important thing to remember about website analytics is that every interaction between a user and your website can be tracked and measured.

By doing so, you can unlock many ways to improve your performance, ranging from fixing errors to creating great content to investing in better marketing.

Data is a powerful tool that you can use to accelerate your growth, customer engagement, and brand reputation. To optimize the value of your website:

  • Start with a clear vision of how the business should operate. Work with an analytics expert to design measurements of how well your website is fulfilling this vision.
  • Use your reports to hold yourself and your team accountable for delivering a great experience.
  • Look beyond revenue and conversion metrics to understand how well your website is engaging users and meeting their needs.
  • Drill down into the details of the analytics data. Compare your performance across aspects such as marketing, content, visitor demographics, and technology. Use this to refine your strategy.

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