Website Analytics 101: Why This Data Should Not Be Ignored
Website analytics measure, collect and report valuable data about how your website is viewed, what pages get the most traffic, who is viewing your site and way more. As a business owner, you can harness this information to improve the effectiveness of your website, using the metrics to optimize the pages that work best and fix up the ones that cause web visitors to exit your site. You can actively track your online campaigns to discover which are working and which are failing. Plus, Google Analytics (GA) if FREE. Why wouldn’t you sign up for an account?
Your website’s analytics give you a window into who your customer actually is, what they find most valuable on your website and even how they come to your site via your social media channels or other domains on the web. In GA within the “Audience” information you can find out what country web visitors are from, their age, gender, even the operating system they are using to access you.
(GA Dashboard>Audience>Demographics)
Going into the “Behavior” section you can see what pages are most visited on your website. Using these metrics, you can change up your web design if necessary supposing you want to promote other pages that fulfill your business objectives. Or, you can ‘strategically’ place calls to action on your popular pages to navigate your users to a lead form where you can obtain their information.
(GA Dashboard>Behavior>Site Content)
Within the ‘behavior’ section, there is also “Behavior Flow” which visually displays how people navigate through your site. Starting from the landing page and showing you the path they take from there.
(GA Dashboard>Behavior>Behavior Flow)
Takeaway: Using this information you have the opportunity to create content that specifically appeals to those accessing your site. If your web visitors are predominately within a specific age bracket, then use vernacular which is familiar to them. Utilize the knowledge of which pages are most popular to create content that is in the same vein i.e. content that explores different aspects of the same topic.
Staying within the “Behavior” section, you can also find out what the “Bounce Rate” of particular pages is. Your bounce rate indicates a percentage of visitors that have come to a page and then exited the website from there without delving deeper into the site. It tells you how many people left your website on a certain page.
(GA Dashboard>Behavior>Site Content>All Pages)
Essentially, when you are looking at this data, you want your percentage to be lower. If the bounce rate is above 60% something is wrong and you should seriously consider switching things up on the page. Revisit your website and see if it’s a poorly designed webpage or if the content is just plain boring. Make adjustments accordingly and fix what’s broken. Spruce up our graphics and copy to keep your web visitors from leaving, entice them to stick around.
All of this information is extremely beneficial for your business because once you understand who your visitors are and their behavior, you can optimize your website to improve results. Analytics provide information to help you make educated changes to your website based on actual data, rather than on a hunch or on speculation. Instead you have concrete evidence to know that something is working or not. You can find and fix the things that are broken on your website and help your web visitors by creating a more user friendly experience.
What are you waiting for?
