Google analytics is too complicated!

[weegillis]

OT: The observers would be right pissed with me, I have my laptop on a drafting board so I'm not tempted to set my coffee near it, and then the music is always playing so the mouse wants to go downhill all the time. I have it tethered so it cannot fall off. Some indication my mouse would be.

[MyRentals]

OT: The observers would be right pissed with me, I have my laptop on a drafting board so I'm not tempted to set my coffee near it, and then the music is always playing so the mouse wants to go downhill all the time. I have it tethered so it cannot fall off. Some indication my mouse would be.

Thats funny!

[deepsand]

... its not surprising that a lot of mouse movement is subconciously connected to focus/reading and thought processes.

As noted by several who critiqued the decades old study that the producers of mouse based heat maps cite as being authoritative, there is no temporal correlation between eye movement and mouse movement. I.e., the mouse does not track the eye.

[Talentlogicsg]

Google, in my opinion does not give you good analytics of your site. You should be able to log into your Cpanel and use AWstats which will give you good stat's on your site and unique visitors, although not that great either, but if you have a domain, you should have that.

[LD]

Google, in my opinion does not give you good analytics of your site. You should be able to log into your Cpanel and use AWstats which will give you good stat's on your site and unique visitors, although not that great either, but if you have a domain, you should have that.

IMO, Google Analytics can give you more to chew on in certain areas over default server stats app (not server logs). On the other hand I also refer to our server stats for a comparison and sometimes, there are differences in the numbers. So for me, I use both. For ranking and backlinks analysis (and other tasks), sometimes I use three sources.

[emils]

And here's my experience too, don't know if it is useful to anyone but here it is.

I don't like too much the GA interface. I know the stats are there, but I would somehow agree that it looks more complicated.

I am using several tools at once, for an online business presence, that uses both organic and PPC traffic, and here they are:

1. I've been using StatCounter on tens of websites for many years. Yep I like it, it is very straightforward to use. I recommended it to everyone I know.
The monthly fee is quite okay from my perspective. Also, for some reason, it seemed to always harvest more data than GA does. It seems more accurate to me. Have no idea why, perhaps it's just my own experience and location based or something.
2. I'm using a self-made log analysis small program, that parses the StatCounter log. This program gives me an analysis of each page in the log, and what is the percentage between PPC clicks and organic clicks, per page and as whole. I maintain a spreadsheet where I track ranking positions in G and compare from time to time, to monitor the organic performance of the site(s). This is the third party log source, verification tool.
3. At some point I realized I need a better, custom tool. So I spent time making something custom on my own.
This had tremendous positive business impact, therefore its internal name is "Success tool". What I do is have a sql database into each site, and raw log each and every hit there, with all data, page, IP, referrer, browser data, search term and such, just like StatCounter does in its log. This helped to reduce Adwords cost by 60% to my own business, and some partner as well. What it does is that it gives me so much information in the format I need: Quickly visualize which search terms are used, on which type (paid, organic google search, other sites), tracks third party G Adwords partners (amazon, ebay and such). I can extract search words on any given page or related keyword, for a day or for the whole time, and then work it out to improve and discover new longtail and business effectivity.
It may seem as other tools, but it's not. The format and daily visual difference between paid, G organic and other sources hits and keywords, is key for me. Unlike JavaScript based online tools, it does not loose any hit because it's php linked (included) directly into the CMS. There is also side information, I'm using GeoISP database to get visitor location info from the log. Another feature is that each time one of reps logs in, he/she has the task to mark each lead or sale in the system. For example if today at 10 AM someone called in and asked for some widgets, they are logged in, search the widgets and flag the record into database, as being an inquiry or sale, and therefore we can connect the lead directly to its origin, and flag that source/site/keyword as a conversion. The app also flags the visitors that reach the Contact page, as having "more interested" than others (we do not accept purchases like a web shop because of the nature of the products) so it can be used. This means you can also track your affiliates as well, if you are using that, or other traffic sources.
The efficiency of Adwords optimization is the best, and it comes from the fact that we can daily add negative words and finetune the existing ones, to our keyword rich Adwords campaign. And this is a daily process. This is saving us thousands of dollars per month in ineffective Adwords clicks.

My point is, if you have the skills and take the time to build your own tool, it may pay back a lot because it is a dream tool, it is designed just as you need it and gives you 100% custom efficiency.
I even consider making a web service out of this tool, somewhere in the next months, during a new IT division setup, as I identified it definitely has some potential.

Edit: I just realized why I see the potential... because it's accurate data, cms linked (not loosing a single hit), provides stats, keyword monitoring and research, Adwords tracking and conversion, affiliate tracking. It is an all in one tool. Though there's still a lot of space for improvement.

[ftw12]

For web analytics, GA is powerful but its interface is horrible. I use GetClicky, its pretty straightforward and its less than $100 per year.

[deepsand]

I use GetClicky, its pretty straightforward and its less than $100 per year.

The comparison chart, Clicky -VS- The Other Guys, says "Free version available."

However, looking at the Pricing, it is clear that, beyond a 3K on daily page views captured, very many of the features listed on the Comparison page are not included in the free version.

Have you tried the free version? If so, what, if anything, is it missing that might be considered essential?

[jhannawin]

What I do is have a sql database into each site, and raw log each and every hit there, with all data, page, IP, referrer, browser data, search term and such, just like StatCounter does in its log. This helped to reduce Adwords cost by 60% to my own business, and some partner as well. What it does is that it gives me so much information in the format I need: Quickly visualize which search terms are used, on which type (paid, organic google search, other sites), tracks third party G Adwords partners (amazon, ebay and such). I can extract search words on any given page or related keyword, for a day or for the whole time, and then work it out to improve and discover new longtail and business effectivity.

We do something similar for our cms, but we don't write log data into sql we do the analysis in the wee hours of the morning from the logs, writing the analysed data to sql and archiving the original log. The downside is that the analysis isn't 'live' it is 24 hrs out of date, but the upside is that we a number of very busy sites where writing sql log files would be crazy.

We encourage users to use our system for day-to-day performance monitoring. It gives them pretty much all they need. If they want to do campaign monitoring where they need geolocation etc. then we point them to GA and the others. Of those who use GA, 70% think it too complex. Of the other 30% only about half really understand what GA is telling them, and we spend time explaining it.

[emils]

We do something similar for our cms, but we don't write log data into sql we do the analysis in the wee hours of the morning from the logs, writing the analysed data to sql and archiving the original log. The downside is that the analysis isn't 'live' it is 24 hrs out of date, but the upside is that we a number of very busy sites where writing sql log files would be crazy.

We encourage users to use our system for day-to-day performance monitoring. It gives them pretty much all they need. If they want to do campaign monitoring where they need geolocation etc. then we point them to GA and the others. Of those who use GA, 70% think it too complex. Of the other 30% only about half really understand what GA is telling them, and we spend time explaining it.

Nice. I know the benefits of doing that on a daily basis. We do the same.

I took the rather difficult approach of storing all data, because from time to time I use to launch a new type of analysis, and then I need data for much more time than just today. Fortunately I worked, years ago, in SQL query performance improvement, so I can definitely cope with that. Otherwise, the web server would just stall, if you send very complex queries to hundreds of mbytes of data. Some of the analysis I make are not per day, but taking all data into account.

Once each 3 months or so, I flush the database (now huge) and store the data into a SQL file for storage, together with the content database. This is what I call a moment's fingerprint. It is not that unusual that I reopen one year ago's files, and see what has changed to a given page, when the differences in ranking are high. And you know, it helped a lot over time.

Side note, I think the degree of success in this line of work, either SEO or PPC, rely on how careful you do your job, and how constant you are in your actions, making them a daily but useful routine.