Web Analytics… ARRRHH! Is it just for the Geeks?
If you have ever launched a brand new website I’m sure you have come to realise, without traffic it’s almost useless. Sure, people may visit it if they picked up your business card or flyer and want more information and that could be helpful. However, the real benefit of having a business website is to generate more sales. To create more sales you need more traffic. To create more traffic you could try search engine marketing and search engine optimisation. The problem is this costs you time and/or money.
Here’s the biggest problem: Simply marketing your website through search engines is not always going to bring success to your business. It can be very hit and miss, particularly if you are new to online marketing.
In order to create success in online marketing you must keep track of your efforts by measuring the results. Test, measure and tweak everything until it’s producing the results you need.
The problem is the Web Analytics tools that are used to measure results online can seem a little too techy for your non-geeky business owner or Entrepreneur. Don’t let the IT guys fool you. Trust me, once you get past all the technical guff and find the information that really matters to your business you will find it a breeze.
Understand the Web Analytics Basics
Web analytics is one of the most essential tools to measure, track and improve your website effectiveness. Although web analytics results are numerical in nature, the meaning behind the numbers is what counts. It wont give you all the answers however it will give you many clues that you could use to make adjustments and improvements. For example, if you notice many people are leaving your website on a particular page, that page may need some work so you can keep people on your website as long as possible. Another fantastic clue to see what your visitors are interested in is looking at what links people are clicking the most. It could be a simple as changing your menu names, once you know what people are interested in clicking on.
Some of the most important information you should look for is:
Visitor Numbers
It’s not just about increasing the number of visitors, it is about the quality of visitor also however, it’s still a great clue to see how the website is going.
Bounce Rates
The number of visitors who leave without clicking through to other pages can also be interesting. Over time, you will get a sense of what kind of information causes people to stay on your website longer.
Traffic Sources
This is vital. How are people finding your website? What search terms are they using? Is there any way of increasing the traffic through these avenues.
There are many systems and tracking software that you could potentially use for Web Analytics. We use Google Analytics ourselves, it does everything we need and best of all it’s free. There are other options that possibly provide better information however, it’s not really about the amount of information you receive, it’s about what you do with that information to get better results.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on what web analytics software is best. Please comment below.
