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What's the difference between web stats and web analytics? It's a question we hear all the time. Well web stats can give you lots of information on traffic, search engine referrals and page downloads but they can be difficult to interpret by the average business user. Web Analytics on the other hand gives detailed information on visitor behaviour and is a much richer source of information for marketers.

Typically web analytics solutions collect session information for every visitor to your website. This data can then be analysed pretty much in any way you want. So you can find out which search engine and queries people are using to find you. But you can also study the behaviour of those users who went on to sign up to your service or make a purchase. Users can be segmented and followed through the site to identify patterns of behaviours. These patterns of behaviour can then help to identify which pages or content produce most sales or show up usability issues which cause users to exit your site.

Combine this with ability to overlay visitor data over a live copy of your website and you have a really powerful tool for developing your web strategy. Perhaps you have a button on your homepage that you want visitors click on and download a demo piece of software? The click through rate on this button is probably an important metric for your business. Does your web stats package tell you what the click through on this button is? Web analytics will not only tell you this but also allow you to track this metric over time. May be you decide to make the button more prominent or change the call to action. The analytics can tell you whether these changes have worked and suddenly you're developing your site using objective information with a clear business strategy in mind.

If you manage some pay per click campaigns you are probably tracking the average cost per clicks you might even be using Google Conversion Tracking to give you some idea of the return on your advertising investment. Most web analytics packages can do this for Adwords and Overture but also for email campaigns as well so that you know which campaigns are the most profitable or effective in achieving your business objectives. However the real advantage over conversion tracking is that web analytics tells you what the visitor gets up to between the landing and final check out page.

With out web analytics you are pretty much driving your website blind but for a relatively small investment you can get the full dashboard plus satellite navigation.