Top 5 Mistakes to Avoid Using Website Analytics Tools

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Website analytics tools provide an array of options for understanding your users and making your website better. You can use it to analyze demographics of visitors, the effectiveness of your SEO strategies, the most effective pages, most interesting content etc. Needless to say, the benefits are plentiful, and you have nothing to lose. But website analytics must be done the right way for it to yield benefits. There are some mistakes you can make that will hinder your website analytics effort and prevent you from getting desired results from it. You must learn how to use website analytics the right way and analyze the data obtained correctly.

These mistakes shall be listed in this article.   

1. Reading the entire data as a whole instead of focusing on smaller segments:

A lot of people make this mistake. There is a whole lot of information that you are given. You get information on top browsers, browser version, device type, operating system, browser resolution, etc. Some users will only focus on browser type alone and optimize their website based on that instead of making good use of the rest of the information provided. Focusing on the smaller segments could give you that much-needed boost you need over your competitors.

2. Picking the wrong tool:

There are several website analytics tools available. You need to select the ones that will bring the most advantages for your business. Some tools come with complicated features that you may not need and might end up spending too much money on. Some are too basic for your needs. Some are suited for large-scale enterprises while some work perfectly for small and medium-scale companies. Some are work fine for blogs while some work fine for eCommerce sites. Before you select a package, you need to decide on what you need the analytics tool for. After doing this, perform a test run before making a final decision. You might also need to use a combination of tools to get best results.

3. Making a lot of assumptions:

Yes, the website analytics tool has given you results and data. It is time to do something with it. But you decide to make assumptions based on the result instead of digging deeper to understand the reasons behind the analytics data you received. A lot of times, we assume we know the reason for something before even analyzing or researching it. Try to adopt a black box model. See things from an outside perspective. Bring in some outsiders and see things from their point of view. They will provide an even better point of view. Use contribution analysis and anomaly detection to detect hidden patterns.  The website analytics tool will provide you with a lot of information, but it is your duty to make the right interpretations.    

4. Confusing page views for page visits:

When reading the results from website analytics, some people make the mistake of confusing a page visit with a page view. Not all age visits are page views. A page visit occurs when someone visits your website from a URL or an external link. The page visit can consist of several page views or a bounce which results from just a one-page view. The website analytics tool can help you detect if the bounce was from an accidental visit or not.   

5. Expecting immediate results:

Some website owners expect to see immediate results. You won’t get results and insights immediately. It takes a lot of work and efforts to get results from the analytics. Web analytics takes a lot of time and effort. Web analytics involves a lot of digging in. Take your time. Think long-term and not short-term.

Conclusion

If you avoid these five mistakes, you will get a lot more results with your website analytics tool. Remember that you after getting results from your analytics tool, you still need to put in a lot of effort to get the results you desire.