Monitoring Web Traffic through Site Analytics Part II
by: live2support
Total views: 89
Word Count: 997
HitBox Professional from Visual Science
At Live2Support, we
continuously evaluate web analytics and visitor site analysis systems of both
the subscription and downloadable variety. We must admit that it is a real
jungle out there with thousands of free and paid products available to assess
your visitor traffic. Since Live2Support's chat software has a large number of
in-built traffic analysis tools, we are able to provide reliable comparisons
against a functional benchmark.
The web statistics service from Visual Sciences
called HitBox Professional is among the more popular solutions being used
today. We will tell you about its many features in a moment but first we need
to tell you that it is not free. Monthly subscriptions to HitBox Professional
start at $26.67 a month and goes up from there depending on which plan you
choose. But before you fish out your credit card, we ask that you first sign up
for a fully functional demo version of the service.
It is a good idea to first use the demo version of
the subscription service just to make sure this is what you are looking for.
Visual Science is strong on customer support and so if you are one of those
users who will need help during the initial stages of implementation, we
recommend that you consider HitBox Professional seriously.
HitBoxProfessional and its Features
HitBox
Professional provides real-time web site analysis. This means that you can
watch visitor activity as it takes place on your web site. HitBox Professional
is equipped to show you where your site visitors are coming from a search engine
results page, web site, directly from a web browser etc. which web pages on
your web site they are looking at, and which navigational paths they take
through your web site. The program also tracks customer orders, customer
behavior and revenue, and accurately identifies the optimal sources of customer
acquisition. HitBox Professional enables you to pinpoint which promotion or
incentive program on your web site is generating maximum heat.
The end result? Web analytics programs like HitBox
Professional can help you devise powerful strategies to increase visitor
conversion rates, and in the final analysis, improve the quality of customer
service.
Downside
Many users and web
masters consider HitBox Professional to be good value for money. Its pricing
structure, however, can be misleading. Subscription plans are based on monthly
page views and if your page views happen to be higher than the allowed number
in your plan and exceed the limit, it costs extra. The extent to which HitBox
Professional is page view sensitive is not determined by you but by external
factors such as visitor traffic and Hatbox's interpretation of this data.
Although HitBox Professional touts many
advanced-level report generation features such as the ability to send reports
to your inbox and the ability to export traffic data to Excel spread sheets, we
have to make sure that you aren't biting off more than you can chew. To
eliminate the possibility of feature overkill, you might want to consider first
signing up for a trial demo version before you subscribe to the service on a
regular basis.
Google analytics
Google Analytics is a
service offered by Google and is designed to generate comprehensive site
visitor traffic data and statistics about the visitors to your web site. Like
most other Google services, Google Analytics is free and is extremely easy to
install and use.
Although the intended purpose of Google Analytics is
to help web site owners who participate in Google's PPC programs like AdWords
and AdSense with traffic analysis, anyone can use Google Analytics. It provides
data on most critical web site traffic issues such as where your site visitors
are arriving from, how long they are staying on your site and their
geographical origin. If you have used Google Analytics before and feel like
commending Google for its elementary and yet highly effective approach to
traffic analysis, you might want to hold off. This tool was originally
developed by Urchin Software Corporation and was subsequently acquired by
Google in April 2005 like You Tube, Jaiku, Blogger, Adaptive Path's Measure
Maps and Feedburner. If you happen to be using any type of PPC to increase site
traffic and your conversion ratio, Google Analytics is a safe and sure bet for
you. This is because its reporting functions are known to be accurate and
mostly tally with similar data from other traffic analysis solutions.
Google Analytics allows you to choose from eighty
distinct reporting features all of which update in one hour or less. You are
allowed to monitor up to fifty web sites although many web masters are able to
sneak in a few extra URLs while Google looks the other way.
Downside
With annual revenues
of $10.6 billion and a worldwide full-time employee base of 15,916, it is hard
to expect Google to be less than perfect. However, there are programs which can
prevent Google Analytics from compiling traffic statistics through overtly
vigilant gate keeping. Pop-up blockers like Adblock and computer privacy
services like Tor do a great job of keeping Google at bay.
Conclusion
If your web site has
either a customer or a content orientation, it makes perfect sense to sign up
for a traffic analysis service. From a technical perspective too, this is not a
complex task. All you have to do is to paste and embed Java script on to your web
pages, upload your updated web pages and activate the site. Just as an aside,
we would like you to know that Live2Support too comes with extremely powerful
web analytics attributes. All the important features offered by HitBox
Professional and Google Analytics are available in Live2Support which gives you
the added advantage of getting potent live chat features and web analytics in a
single functionally integrated environment. And we provide full-fledged
customer support too!
About the Author
Live2Support Inc.
http://www.live2support.com
Email: newsletter@live2support.com
Rating: Not yet rated
Login to vote