Ask HN: I'm a beginner, who should I use for analytics on my site? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I'm a beginner, who should I use for analytics on my site?

6 pointsgmichnikov5 comments

I'm slowly learning to code and building a site for the first time. Right now, the site is free. Soon, I plan to charge a one-time fee for access. I don't have very many users/pageviews yet.

I want to use a free analytics product to get some pretty basic information: How many visitors go to each page? Where did they come from? Where are they located? How long did they stay? (I'm probably missing some obvious ones.) And eventually, something that helps me understand a bit about who is purchasing and who is not.

I'm using PHP and MySQL, and I'm looking for something that is as simple as possible. I strongly prefer ease of use to advanced functionality.

I've seen Google Analytics, MixPanel, Clicky, SiteMeter, KISSmetrics, and others mentioned on HN.

Who would you recommend for a beginner, and why? Is it worth trying more than one at the same time?

Google Analytics, as others have said is a no brainer - go for it. Invest in some time to learn it because it is _way_ more powerful than it first appears. Thins you should investigate are 'event tracking' 'conversions' and 'goals'

As a second analytics app I would use Woopra - it is more basic but it gives you real time analytics, and it's free for up to (i think) 10,000 visits a month.

Stick with google analytics and only 1 or two other analytics programs. You'll know when you need more, or something more specific.

The most important thing I heard(I can't remember where I read it) is to _build your own dashboard_ - that is, code a custom dashboard that shows you stats that are relevant to your site. For me it's a few lines of code that shows me the 20 most recently added users and comments. For you it might show you free and paid signups, and maybe a conversion ratio. This will evolve over time to be far more important than any analytics program - paid or free.

Google Analytics is fine for now, it's easy to use, reasonably accurate and free. a little further down the road you might want to consider other analytics services besides google, because the results can differ quite a lot. But for now, focus on GA.

Google analytics is by far the easiest to use, and its free. Dont over-complicate with choices on analytics right now, focus on your core product.

I have used Google Analytics in the past and just tried Mixpanel. It is great. Love the visualization. You can try out both pretty easily.

Quantcast is pretty good as well. I tend to use them and Google (both free)

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