Why Numbers and Instincts Should Guide Your Business Decisions
Posted by Carlo on July 22nd, 2008
When it comes to making business decisions, I’m a huge fan of giving equal importance to both numbers and instinct.
I thought of launching a blog about my business ideas while I was on the bus home (instinct). Before doing anything about it however, I looked at my statistics before taking any action on my idea (numbers). I’m also testing out several names to guide my decision on the URL and what to name it.
According to the numbers, people are clicking on the business idea category the most (aside from the main page and individual posts, that is). That category edges out every other category and even beats the About page in terms of clicks and visits.
When you’re running an online business, it should be a given that you NEED analytics software, and a great one at that.
Enter Clicky
Clicky is an up-and-coming web analytics software, which apparently are partners with Freewebs, Performancing and BlogFlux. They’re an alternative analytics software apart from others like SiteMeter, StatCounter and the monster-of-a-program Google Analytics.
Some of the ways you can use analytics software to your advantage:
- For blogs, look at which topics are most popular with your readers and cover those more
- Use keywords, sections and categories to determine which products you can offer your customers
- Look for pages that rank for a wide range of keywords, and model your other pages against it
- Find which keywords people are using to find your page and optimize your site for it
Clicky is a wonderful choice for your analytics software and can do all of these for you. In some instances, it’s a smarter option than Google Analytics. Read on to see why.
Outgoing Links
For blogs, the first thing I noticed was the Feedburner module which allows me to track my RSS subscriber count without having to log-in my Feedburner account.
A huge problem with Feedburner statistics is that it isn’t instant. As someone who wants to keep track of how my subscriber count has grown Clicky’s accurate exit page tracking allows me to keep count of how many people clicked to subscribe to the RSS feed right now (a total of 36 subscribers during this period). It also shows me which link people are clicking to subscribe. This shows me that they are using the “Grab the RSS feed” image on the right toolbar.
Visitor Detail
The details that Clicky gives about your site visitors is nothing short of incredible. I can even give the visitor a name if I wanted to.
Clicky also allows you to filter your visitors by operating system, browser, source, and cross-check that against the total number of visitors. You don’t just get the numbers, but also the actions, time spent, and bounce rates.
You can also get the number of actions per visitor and their length of visit, as shown on the screenshot below.
What are Actions, you ask? While Google Analytics only tracks page views, Clicky “also tracks file downloads, outgoing links, and other types of clicks.” They give you a much more accurate picture of visitor activity. Detail oriented people like me will enjoy this.
Spy
The Spy feature is truly an innovative one, as it allows you to get a live view of what’s happening on your site at this very moment. Statistics fiends will enjoy this — it’s like watching a room full of people browsing just your site.
My Wish List
Sad as I am to say it, Clicky isn’t perfect. My wish list for Clicky includes:
- A detailed resource guide for their product. It’s one thing to know the basics of analytics software, but if they could put out an official guide on how to optimize Clicky for your website it would be that much better. Webinar, maybe?
- Omniture-like conversion tracking that allows users to see which sources converted the best. If my conversion metric are the number of clicks on the “subscribe” button, I want to be able to know where these people came from so I can focus my efforts on using these avenues for promotion.
Why Use Clicky Over Google Analytics?
Here’s where it gets interesting.
First of all, getting your results live is the main convenience of Clicky analytics software. Where Google Analytics takes a while to refresh its data, Clicky tells you what’s happening on your site right now, which is perfect for statistic hounds like myself.
However, the main benefit for using Clicky over Google Analytics is protecting your data. While Google might offer you a great tool for free, they charge you in different ways not immediately obvious to webmasters and use your statistics against your best interests.
The issue with using Google Analytics if you’re running a high-traffic site is that they can use your statistics to categorize keywords that competitors should bid for. Since Google’s main source of revenue comes from AdWords, you end up losing traffic that should be yours. Also, if you advertise your site through AdWords, allowing Google access to your statistics might get you hit with a low quality score and have to raise your bids to activate your ad.
Don’t get me wrong, Google Analytics is a great tool. If you don’t have a budget, Google Analytics is a powerful analytics option to keep you going on the right track. I still use GA on some of my sites (including this one), but not for my websites that I advertise through PPC and sell items on.
Give Clicky a shot. They have a 21-day trial where you can avail of their pro versions for free.
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