June 8, 2007 22:55
Category: Optimizing
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In my last article on free web analytics, I've discussed the two main types of web analytics programs available for tracking visitor movement in any website. I've also touched upon the various third party JavaScript-based free web analytics programs that website owners can think of making use of.
In this article we'll briefly discuss their important features and leave the field open for individual website owner to select his/her choice. Mind you, it is possible to use more than one page-tagging web analytics programs in a website. The way to do it is to simply place the JavaScript of various programs one after another (not in any particular sequence) just before the closing body-tag.
There is one more point to consider. All the programs offer free web analytics as well as paid versions though Google Analytics is largely free. The paid versions are relatively cheap, and depending on requirement one may elect to go for paid versions of one or more programs.
Let's now get a bird's eye view of various free web analytics programs.
Crazy Egg
The free version tracks up to 5000 clicks a month in maximum 4 pages, which is usually sufficient for small websites. What it mainly offers is 'click-details' of visitors in a webpage. It comes in 3 flavors, overlay, list and heatmap.
In overlay mode, a plus sign enclosed in a small colored circle on a page is the indicator of clicks happening. Red color stands for high number of clicks, green for moderate clicks, and blue for low clicks.
If you click on a circle, it expands to provide more information like where the visitors have come from before clicking at that place.
The list mode does as the name indicates. It lists the number of clicks in decreasing order. The heatmap mode doesn't give number of clicks but provides a good view of where the clicks have occurred. A bright spot stands for more number of clicks than a dull spot.
Crazy Egg is a good free web analytics program, but it gives you the story of clicks only. You won't get any information about number of visitors, duration of their stay, keywords that brought them, countries they belong to, and suchlike. To know more, see Crazy Egg's different plans.
Google Analytics' Free Web Analytics Program
Perhaps the most comprehensive free web analytics program is Google Analytics. The range it offers is awesome, that is comparable may be only with PMetrics. As of September 2006, the free version offers up to 50 profiles (50 websites) in a single account.
You get plenty from Google Analytics. The dashboard page gives an immediate glimpse of important parameters of visitor performance in the past one month. Figures like number of visits, pageviews, pages per visit, average time spent, and percentage new visit leap at you.
Scroll down and you'll see graphical displays of number of visitors, an overview of traffic source, most visited pages and an overlay map that tells you which regions of the globe contribute maximum visitors.
This is just the tip of an iceberg of information awaiting you at Google Analytics. Drill down by clicking on the links that will provide you with more information. A unique facility here is that you can set 'goals', which means if you indicate a webpage which a visitor reaches after he makes a purchase or takes a desired action, you'll be able to calculate conversion rates and a host of other useful data.
For more information, visit Google free web analytics features.
MyBlogLog
I like MyBlogLog (MBL for short) not only for the cute widgets like 'Recent Readers' and 'Top 5 Links' but also for providing a simple interface that gives you the most essential figures at a glance.
Thus when you open the site stats page, you immediately see the latest list of where readers came from, which pages they viewed and what links they clicked on. MBL offers very nice 'in-a-nutshell' information that quenches your immediate thirst for it.
Okay, you don't get the latest figures in free web analytics version, and you're also limited to top ten figures in each heading in free version though you get to see the actual daily totals.
MBL's paid version (MyBlogLog Pro) costs $25 a year, which is not much, but this amount is to be paid for each website.
On the flip side, MBL's other USP is that it offers an excellent platform for social marketing. You can build your own community of users, have friends and admirers, and much more. May be this is one big reason that MBL has been acquired by Yahoo sometime back.
And yes, another plus in favor of MBL is that it shows you outgoing clicks on Google AdSense ads, which no programs barring Crazy Egg tell you.
PMetrics
Once again it's my favorite because it offers such a wide range of information. PMetrics comes very close to Google Analytics, and between the two I find it more easier to use and glean information from.
PMetrics offers pretty much the same what Google Analytics offers, so instead of repeating them let me dwell on what is unique with PMetrics.
Its $19.99 a year (3 sites, 10K average daily pageviews) deal is a real steal, considering that you get to spy on current visitors, have rss feeds of a wide gamut of visitor information, track downloads if applicable, stop your visits from being counted in stats, and so on.
Its free web analytics program too offers up to 3 sites but the daily pageview limit is 1000 per site. If you've rss feed from FeedBurner, PMetrics gives you information on how many people subscribe to your feed everyday and number of times your feed is accessed.
FeedBurner information is quite valuable for bloggers like me. However it's likely that after recent acquisition by Google, we may have the facility at Google Analytics as well.
My Suggestion
From my experience, I find that having Google Analytics, MBL's free version and PMetrics paid version can be the best possible combination. In most instances, you can access quick information from MBL and PMetrics may be several times a day.
When you've some time to spare, roll up your sleeves and dig inside Google Analytics to find such typical information like conversion rate through goals you've set. The reason I prefer Google Analytics for in-depth analyses is that it appears a bit overwhelming, and not simple displays like the other two.
Overall, there is no reason why you shouldn't opt for these excellent free web analytics programs as long as you can lay hand on every piece of information about your website.
