It would be detrimental to your blog’s success to ignore the value of analytics. From marketing and website design to monetizing your site, analytics can bridge the gap between the major dynamics in running a blog (usability, reader habits, income and expenses, etc.). In all seriousness and without exception, analytics are the key to growing any successful blog.

Finding Analytics for Your Website

Similar to any other website or business tool that you can possibly imagine, there are plenty of choices. Just like email marketing, blog writing, and other types of software, analytics software for your blog can range from free to paid and involve many different features.

However, this is one area where precedence is set with a free and powerful program. Easily the most common website statistics service (according to W3Techs), and currently used on around 57% of the 10,000 most popular websites (according to BuiltWith), Google Analytics is the leader in website analytics.

While Google Analytics likely has everything you want in website analytics, there are of course others. Paid analytical tools can add even more power and functionality to your blog(s), along with certain compatibilities for other tools (i.e. using it in conjunction with a marketing tool made by the same company).

Features Galore

There is certainly a “wow” factor that takes place with analytics. And while there is in no way the space needed to give an exhaustive list of features, consider some of the power that can be utilized for your blog(s), for free:Stats: Even baseball stat junkies could be impressed here. You can view the visitors that came onto the site, how many are returning/new, and so on. From the times a particular page was visited to the amount of a visitor’s stay, stats on your analytical tool are overflowing.Audience: In addition to the previous point’s relevance to this, there is more. You can find out how your audience reached your site, which can be important in gauging SEO and the effectiveness of campaigns. Their location, technology, and even whether they used a mobile device can be seen.Your Site: How effective is your website? What is the bounce rate for particular sections of your website? How many email subscribers do you get from your landing page? And with impressive integration features, you can even directly measure sales within your analytics dashboard.

Winning with Analytics

For those who are not accustomed to the features, reporting, and interface of their analytics tool, it can be overwhelming. You may not know where to begin.

Like anything else, you’ll need that firm foundation. For instance, when you first compare car insurance, you’ll need to investigate the basic terms of the policy before you look at the fine print. Take some time to familiarize yourself with the features of your analytics dashboard. Any tool that you use will have a guide to the simple and complex features present.

Learn more about your analytics software to make the most of your site. It can provide amazing feedback regarding the status of your website, readership, marketing efforts, and furthermore. This truly is one website tool that any owner should use.

Winning with Analytics is a guest post from Wallet Watcher.