Web Analytics are important to the success of your website and SEO campaign, as the ability to report on trend of visits to your site, and see the impact of changes you make on the number of visitors you attract and the amount of pages they view on the site. 

This week Yahoo! have announced they are launching a Beta version of their new Web Analytics software. At the moment this software is not available to all, only a few users to test it before releasing the full version. Looking at the Yahoo! Web Analytics homepage it seems that the functionality will be similar to Google Analytics, offering a real time snapshot of visits and page views. Also like Google Analytics they will be offering a comparative service where you can compare time periods, such as this month and last or this month and the same month last year, useful in spotting increases in traffic and trends for your site, which you can compare with the industry norm to see how you are doing.

Google Analytics are now offering the ability to see two sets of metrics together, such as the number of page views and the average page views per visitor.

Microsoft are also offering an analytics tool, called adCenter Analytics, launched earlier this year in beta format.  The Microsoft tool offers similar functionality as well including Dashboards, 10 customisable reports and funnels for conversions. Like Google Analytics the Microsoft tool enables you to track both paid and unpaid results on the site.

Whatever stats package you use on your site, making sure that you track key metrics and are able to idenfity what works and doesn't work for both online and other marketing is important for the success of your website.