I've done quite a bit of research into web analytics lately, and I have found a couple of things. Google analytics Is a great tool, but it cannot be the only tool an organization relies on. Because it is a purely JavaScript based, it is unable to catch browsers that do not have JavaScript enabled, this includes the search engine robots, some hand held devices, as well as a percent of users that manually turn this off. That being said we need a tool to parse the log files from the server and to give us information about these users, as well as providing us with "on demand" stats where as Google's stats are next day. The server logs also contain a wealth of other information that we are collecting automatically, so we might as well take advantage of it.

I have come to the conclusion that we need to use Google Analytics but we also need a tool that reads the server logs. There are quite a variety of tools that would fill this need. Google recently purchased Urchin who's web analysis product runs Google analytics, costs about $3k and will work with the Google Mini, Urchin also gives the ability to read logs from server software other than IIS (like apache, the software used for open source applications) .

Urchin will be releasing another version shortly, and this will be the first release since the Google buyout. Another option is WebTrends Analytics it costs about $4k. It Like Urchin will read both IIS and Apache logs, and has a web interface for users. The last product is NetTracker, it runs about $4k for the software, and another grand for support. it was recently bought out by Unica. The administration of netTracker is not the smoothest, and the support seems to have declined on quality since the buy out.

Good content is a key factor that determines the success of any website. It is therefore very important that a website should host good and appropriate content in it's pages. There are various factors such as uniqueness, freshness and keyword usage that determine the effectiveness and appropriateness of web content.

Uniqueness of content ensures that the content is found only in your website. This should be specifically tailor-made for your website. Take your own time to prepare this in a most appealing manner. The time and effort you are putting in developing the content will give you good returns in the long run.

A fresh content tries to deal with a subject in a more interesting way. It helps to retain your visitors in your site and prompts them to spend more time there. The more time a visitor spent in your site, the more are the chances to generate a sale from your website.

Keywords are very important as far as any content development process is concerned. Search engines find more value in keywords. This is the major difference web content have with printed content. When you are writing for a website you are not only targeting visitors but also the Search Engines. Keywords lure the search engines to the web pages your website contains. The main challenge in good development is to make sure that you are not loosing quality and purpose of the content while developing your content with keywords. Identifying the keywords for your site should be done carefully. Research on potential keywords for your site with some keyword analysis tools is helpful. Traffic data analysis is also helpful in determining the selection of keywords for your Web Pages.

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Launched on November 2005, Google Analytics was an instance hit to all webmaster around the planet. Giving millions of people the capability to learn more about the web surfers that wandered through their website, the revolutionary service provide by the behemoth, Google incorporated, changed the way webmasters gathered and interpreted information from their websites. By simply adding a HTML code onto every web page that you want to track, you can gain insight on the behavior of your visitors and more.

So how do you use Google Analytics? Though most have a limited understanding of the service, many still remain in the dark on how to use key features and just how to interpret the data. Are you finding yourself in that position? Well if you are, you are in need of some Google Analytics training. With that said, allow me to teach you some very basic ways to interpret some of the information provided by the service.

One common mistake multitudes of people make when interpreting the reports section is the differences between page views and page/visit. Some just don't know what page/visit is and fewer don't know exactly what page views are. Very simply, page views are the number of times your visitors have viewed the pages on your website. Please keep in mind that page views and visits are also different as well. One visitor can view many of your web pages before leaving. Your reports can tell you that you've had one visitor and six page views. That tells you that the visitor saw six of your web pages before leaving. The page/visit metric is an average of all your visitors and all your page views. It tells you how many pages each of your visitors on average viewed before leaving your website. The page views and page/visit are very simple, yet very powerful metrics that will help you keep track on your website's performance.

Even though that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to getting the full Google Analytics training, the basic information I provided should have opened up your eyes to see the value that Google Analytics provides. Before you even think about using this service make sure that you get complete training so that you can get the most out of it.