If you had to write a job description for your site design & development, what would you include? Thinking about your site as an employee is an interesting way to work through identifying the purpose and objectives of your site; and, on deciding how to measure its performance. Let’s try an example:
As the core of our marketing framework, this position has primary responsibility for:
- reaching our target market;
- capturing the attention of visitors; and,
- converting visitors into customers.
Working collaboratively with search engines, social media, and other advertising platforms, you will create interest in our products, describe their benefits, and persuade our target market to make a purchase.
For a position this important, a good effort isn’t enough. No, in this position, you need to demonstrate results. Website analytics is the method you’ll use.
Analytics provide a tremendous amount of information about the visitors to your site. We’ll use some of that data to continue our example.
Is the site reaching our target market?
Analytics are pretty specific about the location of your visitors, and can also determine age and gender for many of them. So, you’ll know if your site is attracting your ideal customers, as well as what platform is sending them your way.
Is the site capturing attention?
Analytics will tell you which page the visitor landed on, as well as the sequence of any subsequent pages they viewed; how long they stayed on each page; and the last page they visited before leaving your site. If you have a high number of visitors leaving within seconds of arriving on your landing page, the site is not capturing attention. You’ll also know which pages visitors are spending the most time on, telling you what content they are most interested in, so you can tweak the information on your other pages.
Is the site getting a satisfactory response to your call to action?
Depending on your business and the features of your site, your call to action could be to make a purchase, set up an appointment, or ask for a quote. The use of analytics here is called “conversion tracking.” What is “satisfactory” depends on how competitive your industry is, but the goal is always to improve the conversion rate.
If you think of your website as an employee, think of us as the Director of Human Resources. With the data analytics provide, we can tell you if your site is doing its job, and what actions need to be taken to improve its performance.
So, is your website doing its job? Give us a call and we’ll let you know.
