What Kind Of User Data Do I Need To Collect?
The importance of data collection is so high that even large companies with years of offline experience risk getting lost on the last pages of search results if they ignore analytical data or interpret it illiterately.
At any time during the operation of a conditionally old site and from the very first days of operation of a young site, you need to connect one or more services to it. This is professionally done by specialists – web analysts who perform the following tasks:
They track users website activities in order to collect and analyze user activity data: the number of pages viewed and the duration of viewing, the regions of visitors, and their interests.
Traffic sources are identified: other sites, social networks, instant messengers, direct visits, and contextual advertising services.
They check the correctness of the collection of the semantic core: according to its results, ineffective ones are eliminated from the text content and new key phrases are added.
Evaluate resource traffic – from studying summary reports to analyzing the popularity of specific site pages – content, product (service pages or product cards), and contact pages. A web analyst may monitor how much time people spend on pages, which links from pages they follow, and which they abandon entirely.
Interpret and forecast user activities to determine who saw and reacted to the CTA (newsletter subscription, clicking the “Buy” button, submitting contact information, etc.) and who got stuck and departed the site.
What can be analyzed using web analytics
A huge number of parameters, of which we list only the main ones.
The number of visits and site visitors by day, week, month, and year.
Time spent by users on the site.
The number and depth of page views by users.
Bounce rates. Here you need to take into account that for Google Analytics this is a viewing session of only one page, or, in some cases, any visit lasting less than 15 seconds.
Clicks on internal links of the site.
Transitions from external sources – other sites, social networks, instant messengers, etc.
Data about the target audience: gender, age, geography, social status, interests.
User actions – comments on blog articles, product reviews, the procedure for ordering goods, completing surveys, etc.
Achieving goals: going to a specific page, clicking a button, filling out and submitting a form, etc.
Technical indicators of the site: page loading speed, site load, device type, operating system, and correct display in various browsers.
End-to-end or complex web analytics
With its help, you can track the entire path of the user – from clicking on an advertisement, for example, Google Ads, until the moment when the money is debited from the buyer’s account and goes to the seller’s account. Here, CRM data, data from advertising accounts, and statistics of web analytics systems and services are combined in one.
With the help of end-to-end analytics, you can record visitors on your website and understand which advertisements and traffic acquisition channels worked in conversion. Ideally, and especially in e-commerce, both types of analytics should be used.
Conclusion
Business needs a website. The site needs traffic. To control traffic, you can not do without site analysis. And a thorough analysis comes down to complex web analytics, which is absolutely necessary for a successful site.
Gathering user data is essential for any commercial establishment, that works with clients on a day-to-day basis. Without this, there can be no talk not only about online sales and Internet marketing on the site but sometimes about its physical existence.