Choosing the Best Web Analytics Tool for Your Site

Compete

Compete is good for checking out the competition. Compare your site against multiple competitors in one easy-to-read report.

Standout Features

• Reports on the competition: Enter up to five competing Web sites for a detailed report comparing their amount of visitors and growth percentage for the month and year.
• Identification of rival search marketing strategies: Find out which keywords are sending traffic to a Web site or a category, which sites get the most clicks from a keyword, and how two sites compare for competing keywords.
• Ranked lists: See where your site stands with customizable ranked lists of up to 500,000 domains.
• Cool browser companion: The Compete Toolbar automatically creates three alerts for every Web site you visit. Trust Scores warns you of potentially malicious Web sites; Site Profiles tells you the site’s popularity, rank, and growth rate; and Deal Light lights up if there are any special promotions or coupons offered on the Web site.
• iGoogle/Netvibes widget: See the latest stats, including the number of unique visitors for up to three sites at a time.
• Site profile extension: Instantly find out how popular a Web site is, identify its rank, and view how fast it's growing through an unobtrusive extension located on your status bar or navigation panel.

Quantcast

Quantcast is good for accurately measuring your audience reach and composition, information that can help you attract advertisers. Quantcast delivers demographic data on gender, household income, ethnicity, education, and more.

Standout Features

• Complete three-in-one analysis: The “holistic” model combines panel-based and directly measured data with its own algorithm.
• Media planner tool: Rank Web properties based on their delivery of audience characteristics defined and prioritized by you.
• Video and widget measurement: This free service measures the usage of your videos, widgets, and games, both on your Web site and elsewhere on the Web.
• Insightful rankings: Unlike many services that offer just the traffic ranking of a Web site, Quantcast delivers a one-sentence summary, such as "The site caters to a slightly female, older, fairly wealthy following."

FeedBurner

FeedBurner is good for blogs, podcasts, and commercial publications that use feeds. FeedBurner is quickly becoming the go-to source for measuring and monetizing feed-based content. The company was recently acquired by Google, so keep an eye out for changes or additions to its current offerings.

Standout Features

• Blog/Web site dashboard: A comprehensive picture of a publisher’s feed audience and Web site or blog audience is provided.
• Podcast optimization: Improve compatibility with various RSS formats and use simple add-on tags for Digg, Share on Facebook, StumbleIt, and other social bookmarks. There is also an element form for iTunes Podcast Directory compliance and more.
• In-depth feed reporting tools: These tools include circulation, reach, and uncommon uses (places where content is resyndicated beyond your known subscriber base).