When it comes to online business data is everything ...
It's great to be number one in any market for relevant keywords especially those that pay. It's even possible to get there by not having any idea how you did it. When it become impossible is when someone who knows what they are doing is hired to knock you out of that place and even push you down off the page. Think it doesn't happen? I have been hired several times to do that exact task.
Not only is it important to know why you are ranked where you are, how to keep or improve that ranking and who else is trying to beat you, but every unit of traffic is important. I would take it so far to say every unit of traffic is crucial and I will explain.
Some years ago I was analyzing some server data, long before there was any such tool as Google Analytics, and noticed a few "hits" coming from one particular URL which, upon examination, turned out to be a competitor's site. They had used an early "widget" (before we called them such) which contained a link to my webdev site. This was long before the days of complex algorithms used by today's search engine but it still had the desired effect in that more people were seeing my link and interested enough to click on it. This resulted in me creating several little widgets for different purposes and resulted in my getting the largest web development contract I have ever had - a very large one that employed my staff and I full time for nearly 4 years in fact.
Oddly enough I recently saw a young person who has a number one site in their market say they do not care anything about the data and in fact never look at it - in the same breath they indicated they had recently closed a 5.2 million dollar deal. Well, it won't be difficult for me to put a lead site up and take his traffic whenever someone decides they want it done.
How to get the data
To me Google Analytics (GA) is by far the best resource freely available. There are others which may be easier to learn to use when it gets into the details but I know of none which are any easier to use "out of the box" and also have the tools provided by GA to get amazingly specific about your inbound traffic. So, sign up for a GA account and plug the information into your header for at least the basic results.
If you are using WordPress ...
WP now comes with JetPack which uses the WordPress.com tools to do things like track visitors to the site. These data sets are general but still give enough information to know how many visitors you have had and what they clicked on or searched on to get there.
I prefer StatPress but use both (along with GA) on most WordPress sites. I also add a few custom tweaks to some sites to gather even more data for a quick glimpse from inside the WP dashboard.
Most hosting accounts ...
If you have a regular web hosting account it should come with a couple of pretty powerful tools like Webalizer and AWStats. Both have their own set of features but generally give a look at all of the server based information available to them. Unlike Google Analytics these tools all are limited to the information the script can gather from the visitor's browser and the server on which the script is hosted.
I am a strategist and developer as you probably know
While this isn't a 500 word spam post I would be remiss not to remind you I have nearly 23 years of small business, online experience and have actually written search engines and created algorithms for clients. When it comes to knowing what data is important to you the first key is knowing which questions to ask you and then knowing when an out of the box solution will work and when it will require something created/coded specifically for your needs.
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