You have to know what is working, what isn’t, and what trends will make your site the next “must read” stop for visitors each day. The only way to effectively do this is to have a good statistics package working in the background. However, figuring out which package is best for your site can be tricky.

Until your site starts earning some revenue, you’re best starting off with something free. Then, as your site grows, you may want to pay for a few more features. If you’re really lucky, you’ll start off with a free package that can grow with you, and it may be the only package you’ll ever need.

This list covers five solutions that will allow your site to hit the ground running and, hopefully, show you just what a success your site really is.

AWStats

AWStats comes pre-installed by many web hosting companies. Additionally, if you’re setting up your own servers, you can download it for your personal use. AWStats goes deeper into the referring sites’ information than most analytics packages, and is a perfect tool for monitoring whether someone is hotlinking files from your site. Besides being a great detective tool for bandwidth thieves, it offers all of the usual useful tools that you might expect from a statistics package.

2. eLogic

eLogic provides three levels of service based on your exact needs. If you need to track only one or two pages, they offer a stat counter that just offers you the most basic of reports. Their Webstats BASIC package is also free, but gives you more the usual tools you expect like referring sites, a history, demographics, and more. Finally if you’re a business or a larger site, you may sign up for their subscription program, Webstats PRO, that will give you a full history and more extensive tools.

3. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is arguably the most popular analytics package available for individual site owners. Google Analytics (or plain old “GA”) allows you to dig down deep into your stats to see breakdowns of individual regions, states/provinces, cities and numerous other items to better identify your site visitors. The wealth of data available is admirably balanced by a well-executed user interface, but it can still be overwhelming. The package integrates with AdWords and has ecommerce-specific tools to track sales.

4. ShinyStat

ShinyStat was initially designed to monitor visits to Italian web sites. Now it is available to sites all over the world, and offers software packages for the individual user, the professional user who needs to track marketing, and a business owner who needs to monitor sales and ROI. There is also a level of service for ISPs to install and include with their hosting accounts.

5. SiteMeter

SiteMeter has a free version for smaller bloggers with up to 100,000 monthly visitors that offers all of the usual tools a webmaster can expect such as tracking referrals, visit durations and so on. If you are launching a larger site and need more tools, there is a paid version based on your volume of visitors.

Google Analytics is a must have for many of today’s businesses with an online presence, but even more for those solely web based (i.e. eBay). Google Analytics offers three main benefits which include the ability to: 1) track visitor’s movements, 2) track visitor segments, and 3) correlate customer’s behaviors with profitability.

Google Analytics allows users to track all movements made by visitors in detail. Users can identify things such as which links were clicked on, how long the visitor stayed on each page, and how long the customer stayed on the site. Finding answers to these questions allows the user to recognize what has and has not been successful.

Google Analytics provides users with the ability to track visitors based on different segments. Visitors could be sorted by geography, referral sources, or by whether they are a new or returning customer. The visitor segmentation benefit ensures that correct marketing efforts are being made to fit the customers. For example, if an overwhelming majority of your customers are located in the U.K., you might consider content (i.e. expressions, word usage) that appeals to people living in the U.K.

Because Google Analytics can track every movement made online, it can also help you correlate the profitability with these movements. It can outline and show how effective an online marketing campaign performed related to your ROI.  Analyzing all the movements made within a page or site, one can see how what products/services were sold and what other items were bought in conjunction to those movements. Google Analytics is a vital tool to your online marketing success; however the application must be utilized correctly to gain the most benefit possible. At Seybold Scientific a Boise based company, we understand Google Analytics and how to make it work for you.