The Chatterbox

Which Tool Should I Use?

The question of which tool or tools to use when trying to optimize the performance of your site is probably the single question I get asked most often. The answer is both simple and complicated.

The simple answer is that it doesn't really matter as long as the tool provides data you can use to take action. There are literally dozens of really good (and sometimes really expensive) Web Analytics/Data Analysis tools out there that will help you gather the information you need and drill down to get to the information you actually need in order to make smart decisions.

Personally, I've used Urchin for years. Urchin is software that gets installed on the server and builds all of its information from there. Other notables would include Google Analytics --which was built off of the Urchin platform when Google bought Urchin a couple of years ago-- WebTrends, CoreMetrics, Omniture, ClickTracks, etc.

All of those, save Google Analytics, cost money to use. Some are installed on the server, some are not. And you'll notice that I've left general Web Statistics programs (eg Webalizer, AWStat, etc) off of my short list. From years of experience the general statistics programs simply don't provide enough information to enable one to come up with an actionable marketing plan.

For the purposes of this series I'm going to be referring mostly to Google Analytics. It's free, and is a good choice for many smaller webmasters. However the same concepts can be easily transferred to any suitable Web Analytics program.

You'll need find something that fits for You, and most of them offer some sort of free trial period so you can test them. If you've got a budget that allows purchasing an installed analytics solution, go for it. Doing so will ensure that all of your proprietary visitor data stays exactly that, proprietary.

If not, something like Google Analytics will likely be the best choice, at least for now.