Why web analytics are important

To many people just the term web analytics seems quite technical and quite daunting . Sometimes these figures are referred to as web metrics, an equally mathematical term that is actually fairly off-putting. Like a lot of things in technology, the language used is inevitably made to sound more important and mysterious than it actually is. When broken down into what it means it fairly simple.
What web analytics does is to give you the owner of the website actual figures as to who or what is visiting your website, how often, from what country, at what time of day etc etc. Its worth clarifying the 'what' as being other computers that are visiting your sites, rather than human beings.They could be machines gathering information for search engines, possible spam searchers or such like. The reason its so important , is that it gives you the site owner valuable information about numbers, and numbers matter.
Knowing how may people are visiting your site, whether or nor they are new visitors or returning visitors tells you how popular your site is, was, or is becoming. Analytics tell you can tell you where the visitors came from, in terms of country and from which source i.e. a web site, a search engine etc. Knowing the country matters because you can slant future stories or information towards that country, or at least know that that is the direction the website is going. If your visitors came from a website, it can tell you which one and if from a search engine, it can tell you which search terms were used.
Web analytics or metrics are key if you intend in any way to monetize your website. Advertisers need to know figures of viewers and you need to be able to prove numbers. Remember that if you own a website or blog , you are a publisher. Any publisher of any medium needs to know its readership, and have a breakdown of readership profile. Spend time de-mystifying the process and it will significantly improve your understanding of your own readership.
Web analytics are alse really important if you are running or going to run any sort of affiliate program. Like Amazon or Commission junction etc. If you are getting a decent level of traffic, you will want to know where it is coming from geographically especially. This is particularly true if you are selling some sort of product. This will allow you to do additional marketing even more effectively by focusing on things like discussion boards etc.