Web analytics tools give you the insights necessary to understand whether or not what you’re doing is helping your website. Not only do website analytics tools offer valuable insight into your site's visitor behavior, but they also have the added benefit of helping you understand what your competition is doing. Finally, web analytics tools are excellent for tracking and measuring your online marketing efforts.

The Value of Good Web Analytics Tools in 2022

Without web analytics tools, you are essentially walking around in the dark. There are a few web analytics tools that you absolutely must have if you want to be serious as a website owner. Some of these tools are also from companies that have spent years crawling the internet for data that you could not get by yourself.

These companies manage petabytes of data, making their tools excellent for getting the most competitive intelligence imaginable—and they combine helpful information without breaking the bank. In fact, a few of these tools are free.

1. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the best free tool on this list. Not only are you getting the infrastructure of Google, but you are also getting a capable general analytics platform for all your website needs. Google Analytics is traditionally the starting point for most website owners.

It offers plenty of useful features that make it an excellent choice even when you have money to spend on your analytics platform, including:

• Accurate Demographic Information
• Bounce Rate Tracking
• Custom Goals
• Custom Funnel Tracking
• Years of Data Without Having to Maintain Your Infrastructure
• Integration with Google Webmaster Tools
• Session Length Tracking
• Accurate Referrer Information
• Site Speed and Page Load Timing

These features make Google Analytics an excellent choice if you want a basic analytics tool to keep track of the people visiting and interacting with your site. The JavaScript loads quickly, which doesn’t substantially add to your page load time. Since it is the most popular web analytics tool, you can easily get help whenever you run into trouble.

2. Clicky

Clicky performs the same functions as Google Analytics, but it is a paid tool that gives you a little extra. The main difference between Clicky and Google Analytics (other than price) is that it offers heat maps and more accurate bounce rate tracking. It also provides more precise segmentation, enabling a better understanding of your visitors. It even gives Twitter keyword monitoring and uptime monitoring.

In addition to its accurate tracking and heat map capability, the tool offers:

• Split Testing
• Outbound Link Tracking
• On-Site Analytics
• Download Tracking
• Individual Heat Maps
• Video Analytics
• Advanced Segmentation

3. Matomo

You might notice a trend that we are focusing primarily on general web analytics tools. We focus on these tools because they give you the best bang for your buck. If you had to choose one web analytics platform, you would go with one of the above because these tools offer all the features most website owners need.

While it offers everything you get with Google Analytics, the main differentiating factor with Matomo is that it is a free and open-source platform. While paid cloud-hosted installations are available, you can put Matomo on your server. Having the source code also means you can modify it to add features specifically for your use case.

Matomo is an excellent option if you’re looking for a platform that puts you in complete control and includes features like:

• Cookieless Tracking
• Log Analytics
• You Control the Data
• Install Your Analytics Anywhere
• Open Source
• A/B Testing
• Importer for Google Analytics Data

4. Ahrefs

The previously mentioned web analytics tools have all been the type you put on your website to collect information about people visiting. However, what happens when you want to get information about what your competition is doing? That is where tools like Ahrefs come into play.

Ahrefs crawls the internet the same way that Google does, but the spiders only collect information about backlinks. Ahrefs claims to have more than 250 PB of backlink information stored in its index. Ahrefs also has a database of 500 million keywords to give you detailed insights about which website is ranking for what keywords.

It is one of the best tools for search engine optimization (SEO) professionals to learn what is currently working. The information in the Ahrefs database is critical for doing well in the modern SEO landscape.

On top of these features, Ahrefs offers:

• An On-page Site Audit Tool
• 500 million Keyword Database
• Research Backlink Data for Any Website
• Rank Tracker
• Content Explorer to Help You See the Type of Content That Ranks Well

Ahrefs is one of the more expensive web analytics tools, but it is still one of the best value for money for people trying to get traffic through search engine optimization.

5. Adbeat

Adbeat gives detailed information about the types of advertisements your competition is running. Adbeat is similar to Ahrefs in that they both crawl the internet, but the difference is that Adbeat crawls websites to collect advertisements currently running. Adbeat has built a massive database of ads that spans over five years. It is an excellent tool if you are trying to run paid traffic and see what your competition is doing.

If a current advertisement is successful for your competition, you can see that because they wouldn’t keep the ad running if it didn’t make a profit. It also lets you understand what your competition has done in the past that turn out to be a failure. That knowledge enables you to avoid making the same mistakes as your competition. Adbeat even uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to give you an accurate estimate of what your competition pays for advertisements.

The tool also offers:

• Data from the Top 120+ Ad Networks
• View the Top Creatives of Your Competition
• Generate Advanced Reports
• Research Publishers
• Accurate Information About Advertisements by Country
• The Knowledge to Write Better Copy

Honorable Mentions: Other Web Analytics Tools You Might Need

While the five web analytics tools named are impressive, they aren't the only ones that might benefit your website data gathering. To round out this list, the following web analytics tools are impressive:

• Crazy Egg – A Dedicated heat map web analytics tool
• Voluum – An excellent link tracking tool for people selling products online
• HubSpot – A complete suite of tools for digital marketing

These tools are just the start, but there is enough to enable you to dominate any market. However, excellent web analytics tools don’t matter if you don’t have a beautiful website to go along with them. That is why it makes sense to use Bubble, a no-code platform, to create a better website than your competition. Get started with a free account today.

About Bubble

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Millions of users are building and launching businesses on Bubble—many have gone on to participate in top accelerator programs, such as Y Combinator, and even raised $365M in venture funding. Bubble is more than just a product. We are a strong community of builders and entrepreneurs who are united by the belief that everyone should be able to create technology.