Your website is your most important marketing tool. It should have a defined purpose, tailored to your business, and it’s pretty easy to figure out if that purpose is being fulfilled.
Almost every website tracks data – certainly all of the ones we build do. You can use that data to provide a general overview of visitors, to compare time periods, or to track the impact of a specific action you’ve taken, like a new social media post. The assessment of this data provides a wealth of information that can be used to increase sales. If you’re a decision maker in your company, you need to have at least a basic understanding of analytics, even if it’s just to know why we’re recommending changes to your site. So, let’s have a look.
The Audience
Audience data tells you how many people visited your site, whether they were new or returning visitors, where they live, and what type of device they used. Some things to check include:
Are there more or fewer visitors in the past six months compared to the previous? Why might that be? Did you end an ad campaign? Do you have new competitors? Is your business more seasonal that you thought? Or has your site not changed for years? Are most people using their phones, and is your site optimized for mobile? Make notes to combine with other factors.
The Starting Point
Analytics tell you how a visitor got to your site. Did most search Google or a different search engine? What words did they use to search? Are these the keywords that your site is optimized for? Did they come from an ad or post on social media? What’s different about that ad or post that attracted attention? How many typed in the URL directly? Were these mostly new or returning visitors?
Combining just the audience and starting point data can give you a lot of insight. A lack of retuning visitors, for example, tells you that something is wrong. Did they have the wrong idea of what you offer? Is there something about the home or landing page that is sending them away? You may need to dig deeper on things like that. Now, if you have a lot of returning visitors, and if those people and even some new visitors are using your URL directly, that’s great news. It means that your customers are happy and are sending their contacts your way.
The search engine, keyword, and social link data is also valuable, as this information gives you a head start on your next round of advertising.
The Scan Path
Analytics also track which pages visitors view, where they go next, and how long they linger. This is important because it tells you the pages that are of the most, and least, interest. If a seeming lack of interest surprises you, it could mean a problem, like a slow loading page or a poor navigation path. Staying on a page for a longer time but not taking action can indicate indecision or something being almost, but not quite ideal. So then, you need to look at how your offerings compare on features and pricing. You may need to do a few real-time experiments to home in on the problem and solution.
The Conversions
Conversion means a visitor takes the action you intended – making a purchase, filling out a form, setting up an appointment, or calling your shop. A website that doesn’t produce conversions isn’t working. So, what percentage of visitors produced a conversion? What page where they on just before they took that step? What was the entire path of pages? You’ll want to keep this path strong and even streamline more if you can. Conversely, of the visitors that didn’t convert, did they all exit the site from the same page? Why, is the question you need to answer. Then, we can help you get them back on the path to conversion.
The Bottom Line
Since you have us, you don’t need to become an expert in analytics, but understanding the power of this data will help you make better decisions about investing in your website – the best marketing tool you have.
