It’s no secret that data is one of the most valuable commodities in the market. In fact, in 2017, the Economist found that data holds more value than oil.

In the ever-competitive digital field, you need to arm your website with the best tools to thrive. Web analytics are essential because they provide insight into things such as your traffic, audience, page views, clicks, conversion rates and more. They then analyze these factors to tell you what you should and shouldn’t be doing.

With all the different data resources available, the options might seem overwhelming. To simplify the process, we’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite web analytic tools. Here are the top web analytics tools that you’ll need this year.

Google Analytics

Perhaps the most popular of the available analytics options, Google Analytics is a hotspot for both newcomers and professionals alike. Research by Econsultancy even found that it was used by over 70% of companies. The best part? Its most basic option is free, offering 20 custom metrics and 200 views per property.

The platform shows you which keywords are leading people to your website. This will help you optimize your site based on the most relevant search terms. It’s crucial for knowing the best SEO practices, with excellent, up-to-date statistics.

Google Analytics give you an in-depth look into your visitors’ dispositions. It allows you to examine their demographic information, personas, how they landed on your website, and why they did or didn’t convert. The platform’s dashboard offers a heavy flow of data, including how you can allocate your budget intelligently. It helps you separate practical methods from ineffective ones, and shows which third party websites are generating the most traffic.

Crazy Egg

Hatched by entrepreneurs Neil Patel and Hiten Shah, Crazy Egg helps you track your  visitors’ activity through a well-executed heat map.

The platform uses mouse tracking technology to create a visual portrayal of the parts of your page that people are clicking on the most. It shows factors such as where your site traffic is coming from (Facebook, Twitter, organic search, etc.), and which parts of the page are interacted with while which parts are ignored. Hot spots are represented by a bold red, while not-so-hot spots come out in lighter variations.

Crazy Egg also boasts a scroll map option, which splits the page up in vertical streaks to show which areas have the most interactions. This is perfect for analyzing any long-form copy, since you can see what’s being skimmed and what’s being skipped.

The platform is not difficult to navigate. It has an easy sign-up option that asks you to  enter the link of the website you want analyzed. Plus, the whole process is relatively affordable, with the basic package totaling $29 a month.

As a whole, Crazy Egg helps you narrow in on what to focus on for your optimization and how to position the most crucial aspects of your page. It different from other data tools in its interactive format: showing data visually, without any raw numbers.

Clicky

Used by an enormous chunk of the world’s internet – over 1 million websites – Clicky is quickly making its dent in the web analytics field. The platform takes a bottom-up approach, placing a large emphasis on the smallest of details. Its biggest perk is its real-time monitoring capabilities, where you can actively track visitor engagement. That means you can see how many visitors are currently on your site, as well as what they’re doing and when they’re leaving.

Clicky offers a heat map option that shows a visual depiction of the parts of your website that are most clicked on. You can view them by page, visitor or segment.

The platform also offers a Twitter tool, letting users search business mentions on Twitter.

And if your site suffers from a flaky server, then you won’t have to constantly refresh it. Clicky monitors your site from seven different locations around the world to let you know whenever it goes offline.

The platform is free if you’re only analyzing one website. It also offers monthly subscription plans from $9.99 a month to $79.99 a year.

 ClickTale

If you have a lot of visitors on your site who aren’t converting, ClickTale can help you figure out why. The platform offers a qualitative customer analysis, tracking the entire choreography of a visitor’s actions.

A heat map displays the level of engagement spread out though out your site. It can show you how your most engaged users act in comparison to your most disengaged ones. If you find that people are getting to a Call to Action (CTA) but not clicking it, it might be because of a design or copy error. This is something that you can later modify and test. If visitors aren’t even reaching your CTA, then you’ll know you need to move it higher.

ClickTale can help you fix all your website glitches – seeing where people pause, stutter and leave. It might even show you that people are clicking on things that aren’t links, which means you should probably make them into links.

Matomo

Matomo, formerly known as Piwik, is an open-source analytics platform that prioritizes a user’s control over his data. The platform is similar to Google Analytics, except that you have to host Matomo on your own server. It’s also free, making it perfect for small business owners who aren’t looking to splurge on tracking data.

Matomo offers the ability to track site searches and running campaigns. It offers great real-time analytics, which you can view on their mobile app. You can track multiple websites on one dashboard. The platform also helps you set your overall website goals and tie them into your marketing campaign. It emphasizes simplicity when it comes to gathering raw data.

Takeaway:

• Website analytic tools are important because they provide valuable insight into how your website is performing
• Google Analytics offers a free tool that shows you which keywords are bringing people to your site
• Crazy Egg displays a detailed heat map that tracks mouse movement
• Clicky is known for its real-time monitoring abilities
• ClickTale records your visitors’ actions to show you what they’re doing on your website