Web Analytics with R assist you in different form of analyzing web-data. If you have a blog, e-commerce website or a company website, there is a major possibility that you might be using Google Analytics to keep a track of traffic, measure conversion and understand visitor sources. While Google Analytics in itself is an excellent tool for monitoring past performances, it is not very useful with predictive analysis. This is where R enters the monitoring process and provides you with an enhanced ability to visualize data, forecast and many other advanced capabilities.
What is R?
R can be defined as R Programming Language that is exclusively created for graphical data visualization and statistical analysis. While it is vastly similar to Python and is a command line language, it can be used with graphical applications as well.
While new users might find the language difficult to master, there is an R package for Google Analytics that allows you to connect R to your Google Analytics account to make it a little easier for you.
What are benefits of using R?
A large number of data analysis software are available in the market, like Excel, SAS, SPSS, and many other data mining applications. But R has an edge over these and the same is explained in detail below-
• It is Free – As R is an open-source project, it is free for everyone and this eliminates the problem of license managers, user limits and subscription fees. Moreover, its open source allows you to alter the code as much as you want. Many experts across the world have made their own modifications of R and these modifications are now benefiting millions of users throughout the world.
• It is a Language – With R, data analysis is done with the help of written scripts and functions and not by clicking and pointing. While this may sound difficult, once you’ve learned the language you’ll surely think otherwise. First of all, the language is not extremely difficult to master and as an interactive language, it promotes exploration and experimentation. This not only helps in improving data analysis, but often leads to discoveries which wouldn’t have been made otherwise.
• It is Flexible – Majority of the standard analysis tools are already available in R. Right from data manipulation, accessing data from various formats, to modern or traditional statistical models, everything is available at a single place and this makes it extremely easy for you to combine and use the data you need without the need for any kind of cut and paste job.
• It offers Graphics Visualization – Data Visualization with R with the help of graphs and charts which makes it extremely easy for you to understand the analysis. It offers many different types of tools that can be used for designing graphics, like bar charts, lattice charts, scatterplots and a lot more.
Web analytics with R will surely allow you to have a better understanding of your websites performance. It is open-source, free, easy to use, has multiple features and will offer you a clear picture of the visitors on your website and will allow you to target them and cater them in a better way.