We all know that SEO and social media marketing are great tools to get your website to rank high on the search engines. But another tool is even more vital to an online business’ success, even though it doesn’t always get the attention it deserves: web site analytics.
With web analytics, you can measure:
- how a visitor arrived at your site
- what pages were viewed
- what action was taken – ideally, a conversion
Web analytics can be confusing. There are so many different charts and graphs available to review. Google Analytics, for instance, tells you how long someone stayed on your site, what keywords were used to find you, and the percentage of new visits, among other things. This is how Google displays some of this information:
Here’s one example of how you can use analytics to effectively measure a marketing campaign:
Let’s say you offer a white paper for download to your target audience. Of the 100 people who visit your landing page, only five of them complete the download (conversion). This suggests there may be a problem with your landing page. Maybe the design is poor, the copy is confusing, or a visitor has to give too much personal information. Now, you have the opportunity to make some changes, and use analytics again to see if there’s any improvement in conversions.
Web analytics can help you keep track of what areas of your site are working, and which need to be updated. For instance, if visitors aren’t going to a web page as often as they once did, you may need to freshen up the content. Or if one of your pages isn’t getting any traffic, that may indicate a problem with navigation or promotional channels. Maybe a link is broken, or visitor didn’t find what they expected when they clicked on an ad.
Spend some time exploring the opportunities web analytics offers. The more familiar you become with the measurements it offers, the more you can use it to help you improve your website’s performance, and ultimately, your company’s profitability.
