Are there better & inexpensive third party website analytics software over Google Analytics?
-
I've heard there are some third-party software that provide greater depth of information than Google Analytics, such as mouse tracking, heat mapping, video snapshots ect.
Can anyone recommend a good program to use? I've tried a basic web-search but there seems to be a great variety of different ones.
-
I'll second what Paul said about Crazy Egg...it's amazing! I still use GA as well but I absolutely LOVE the Heatmap and have made many optimization decisions after doing tests with it running.
-
If you are interested in knowing the value of your visitors and why they are not converting then probably you should consider moving towards KISSmetrics as this is one of the best tool that can tell you about the value of visitors and how fixing things can help you increase your conversion rate!
-
Hi Paul,
Thank you for the detailed response. You've made a very good point here.
Specifically, what I'm looking to try find out is more about the 'buying process' of our customers. While Google Analytics can tell me what pages get the most hits, basic vistor demographics, I'd like to investigate more of the 'individual buyers process' on the website.
For example, an individual reaches the home page, then where do they go? What sequence of pages do they go to and then what is the end result. Do they file a web inquiry or do they consistently exit on a particular page?
Also - I think mouse tracking would be beneficial for this purpose. If you have any other recommendation of area's I should look into regarding identifying online buyer behaviour I'd greatly appreciate it.
I am still in the intermediate stage of learning web analytics and SEO and am looking to take it to the next level and identify key data that would result in physical alterations to the website and online marketing strategy to increase both website hits and conversion rates.
Thank you again,
Justin.
-
There are so many analytics options out there that it's pretty difficult to make recommendations without knowing what it is you want to accomplish, Justin. Each will have their own very specific purposes and strengths. And weaknesses. For example most specific tools will do a very poor job of overall analytics. So they need to be run in conjunction with other tools.
What specifically do you want to know about your site that Google Analytics isn't telling you?
If you're looking specifically for heat-mapping, Crazy Egg is pretty much the industry standard. As a Pro member you can use your Pro Perks to get your first two months free.
But it's always better to have a clear plan for what and why you want to measure first. Then find a tool that delivers the data you need. Otherwise, all the new data will look very interesting but the time spent won't be justified by any improvement.
Hope that helps?
Paul
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
I changed my home title and meta description but on google, i still see the old title and meta description. Whats the problem here?
I basically changed the title and meta description of my homepage and when i search on google, it still shows old. Whats the issue?
Search Behavior | | prestigeluxuryrentals.com0 -
Is it better to find a page without the desired content, or not find the page?
Are there any studies that show which is best? If you find my page but not the specific thing you want on it, you may still find something of value. But, if you don't you may associate my site with poor results, which can be worse than finding what you want at a competitor site. IOW maybe it is best to have pages that ONLY and ALWAYS have the content desired. What do the studies suggest? I'm asking because I have content that maybe 1/3 of the time exists and 2/3 of the time doesn't...think 'out of stock' products. So, I'm wondering if I should look into removing the page from being indexed during the 2/3 or should keep it. If I remove it then my concern is whether I lose the history/age factor that I've read Google finds important for credibility. Your thoughts?
Search Behavior | | friendoffood0 -
Recommendations for a Form Analytics software
Hello Mozzers! Currently using Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics, but looking for something dedicated to analyzing how effective our sign up pages are. What do you guys recommend? Here are some that I have found: http://revrise.com/ http://www.formisimo.com/ Perhaps there are add-ons available in GA that would offer similar data? Any help is appreciated! Thanks! Will
Search Behavior | | Newegg-NA0 -
How come this one google places listing is the only one to show up google maps?
Hi there, I found a really weird thing about google places. I'm working on a google places listing optimization for a locksmith company in Houston, TX. When I was searching google maps for "locksmith houston" only one listing came up. However, when searching for "locksmith near houston" 880 results came up. This changes from time to time, but most of the time this one competitor is the only listing that shows up which is really really weird. Anybody has an idea what this competitor did to get rid of the other 879 results and show up alone on google maps??
Search Behavior | | activechase1 -
Industry Benchmarks for Google Analytics
Hey Mozites! I was wondering if anyone has come across any good resources for industry benchmarks relating to google analytics? (Social stats would be great as well, but Google Analytics is my main concern) Specifically, I have a client that is a bank and I would love to be able to compare their stats (traffic, unique visitors, bounce rate, time on site, conversion rates...) to other regional banks. Any ideas? Thanks for reading and for your help!
Search Behavior | | iBecC0 -
Dating Blog Posts & How Fast Google Picks up on New Pages
I had until a few months ago included the original post date of a new blog post on the site. I then removed it and none of my results in Google now include the blog post date, although for some (for articles written about events) Google includes the date of the event where you would usually see the post date. Since I did this, it seems like new blog posts are taking longer to rank on Google, some results are ranking well, and others declined relative to what I would have previously expected. What's the best thing to be doing? To include a date (considering a lot of my content is not time-relevant) or to keep it as it is now? The second thing, is I often go through and update my articles with new information and re-post it in my rss feed etc - ie the date becomes new again. How does Google treat this? Any ideas or comments would be great! Thanks
Search Behavior | | ben10001 -
Pro/Cons of JUST using Google Analytics
I find myself in a situation where I am having to defend why purely relying on just Google Analytics for site data i.e. exit pages, keywords, bounce rate etc... is not good practise. So I thought/wondered if other people have come up against this. What are the Pro and Cons for ONLY using Google Analytics for your site data....
Search Behavior | | JohnW-UK0