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Tracking and analyzing web traffic?
What's the best method?
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5 Answers
There is no right answer to such an ambiguous question. Each business is different and will have unique operating environments. For many small businesses, Google Analytics is suffiicent at presenting high-level audience dashboards/metrics and you can't beat the price.
As your business gets more complex or you require a more secure integration of your backend business data, it often makes more sense to develop your own reporting environment that pulls in business intelligence from all channels.
None of us can really give you an actionable answer until we know more about the complexity of your business and your goals.
With Google Analytics you can set goals and see how users are responding. I think it's a good way to track traffic, and you can analyze from there.
WebTrends is another option if you don't think Google is giving you what you need.
Google analytics is a good place to get a taste for the market but once you find all the things it can't do, then the bigger players like webtrends are very useful. The most important part is to have a clear picture of your desired metrics before you get out and start paying for data, because you will be awash in results very quickly.
I agree with Brian. Every company needs assessing based on their requirements. Google Analytics might be OK for a start but as your business grows you might find that you need to consider a more flexible analytics tool, and/or develop additional tools to collect specific data you may require.
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