Web analytics can be defined as the measurement of data relating to an Internet website. This includes the number of visitors, number of pages viewed, how much time the visitor was on your site, etc. We can use this information to examine and improve your website and its content. It is also very important tool to utilize when you are analyzing internet advertising and Search Engine Marketing campaigns.

There are a number of services out there that provide analytics reports of your website. At Neal Advertising, we are partial to Google Analytics for its accurate reporting, ease of use and the amount of available data. Today we’ll take a look at 3 basic metrics. 

The total amount of web pages that were viewed on your site in a given time period is referred to as page views. If someone visits your site once, but views 15 different pages, your site just generated 15 page views. When using this to analyze your website, you also need to look carefully at the number of pages you have on your site and the content on each page. You can also delve deeper into this by looking at which individual pages garner the most traffic.

An individual or browser that views your site is measured by a unit called a unique visitor.  If an individual visits the site more than once, it is only counted as one unique visitor. This is a great way to measure your websites traffic, giving you an accurate reading on your audience size. 

When Google calculates your time on site, they take the total amount of time that each visitor spends on the site before exiting the website. If you view 2 pages for a total of 10 minutes or 20 pages for a total of 10 minutes, your time on site will be the same. Every website is unique and thus, the amount time a visitor spends on your site gets will vary. When analyzing this metric, it is important to look at the number of pages, content of those pages and your ultimate goal or purpose for the website.

As with any web metric, Google Analytics is not 100% accurate, but it is a great tool to measure the effectiveness and stickiness of your website.