Web analytics provides site owners with insight into site activity and user habits. It also allows site owners to measure the success of a site and shows the popularity of features offered. This knowledge is crucial to understanding if a website is the core objective of an organization.

Web Analytics Tools

To capture site visits and activity, a tool such as Omniture or Google Analytics is useful. Such tools measure exactly what visitors are clicking on, how much time they spend reading an article/watching a video/listening to an audio file, where in the world they are located, which websites referred them to the site and so on. Other tools like AWStats, eLogic and SiteMeter will easily capture visits to a website but don't provide the detailed information about user activity.

Obtaining an HTML Code

When choosing a provider for your site metrics, note that Omniture charges clients for tracking sites, whereas Google Analytics is free of charge. To start tracking, you need to obtain an HTML code from your analytics provider. This is a profile-specific tracking code for your page. This HTML code snippet includes a generic portion that labels it as a Google Analytics or an Omniture tracking code and then includes a personalized code that is specific to your profile. When you right-click on a website and select "View Source," you can determine if there is an HTML code tracking the user activity of the page.

Adding a Personalized Code

Once you have a personalized code snippet, that code should be inserted immediately before the </body> tag of each page you'd like tracked. Depending on the security of your page, you may need to seek tailored instructions from Google Analytics or the Omniture support team when inserting this. If adding a tracking code to a web page created in iWeb, insert an "HTML snippet" widget and paste the personalized code in there. Make sure that after you publish the site, with the tracking code, you visit the page to make sure the widget is performing as you expected.

Data Collection

Give the code a few days to start collecting data, and then take a look to view the number of visits to your page, top content viewed, geographic location and network location of your visitors. To best utilize the analytics gathered, establish key objectives for your site and for each objective determine two to three key performance indicators that can be measured to show whether you're meeting that goal. For example... OBJECTIVE #1: Regular visitation by a global audience - Key Performance Indicator #1: Number of visits to the site - Key Performance Indicator #2: Number of new visits to the site - Key Performance Indicator #3: Number of states (countries) of visitors Web analytics provides an interesting snapshot of visits to your site, but it's important to take the time to establish measurable goals so your web analytics tools demonstrate whether your site is actually meeting your overall needs.

Source:

"10 Web Analytics Tools for Tracking Your Visitors;" Rick Tansun

Google Analytics - How Do I Add Tracking Code to My Website?

"Measure What Matters: Defining KPIs and Driving Business Performance"

Resource:

Omniture Success Stories

Measuring Website Traffic