Website Analytics… Find Strategy Behind The Numbers
Are you monitoring your web traffic? Do you know what drives people to your site and what piques their interest once they get there? A good website is the centerpiece of a strong marketing strategy, but how do you take your website beyond design and elevate content to the next level, driving traffic that results in conversions?
By analyzing website data, you can better understand the mindset of your customers. If you haven’t integrated an analytics or tracking mechanism like Google Analytics into your web strategy, it’s time to start. Analytics programs not only help you to monitor overall site traffic, but they also help you drill down to find out critical information like:
Search Terms – What people typed into an organic Google (or other) search that brought them to your site
On-site Traffic Patterns – What pages are more frequently visited, how long do people spend on each page, etc.
Geographic Reach – The reach of your website traffic, drilled down by country, region, state and city
Referring Sites – Traffic driven to your page from another website
Traffic as a Motivator – What activities on your site drive up traffic and what makes it taper off
Why is information like this important? By analyzing the numbers, you can craft web content, blog topics and engage in activities on referring sites to increase your website visits and the effectiveness of your marketing message.
Let’s break down the four pieces of information above and translate them into a stronger marketing strategy.
Search Terms
Examining the search terms that drive web traffic can help you craft marketing messages. We get regular traffic from the search term “Top Qualities of a Logo.” The search links back to a blog post from last fall on logo design. Knowing that logo design is a popular topic among our readers, our team can now focus strategic effort into creating more content about this topic. This will create instant value and improve SEO in the process.
On-site Traffic Patterns
By watching the traffic patterns on your website, you’ll be better able to understand the decision process of your audience. Are they more interested in the services you offer, or the biographies of the team behind your business? Watch visits per page along with time spent on the page to get a more thorough answer for this. A high page visit number coupled with low time spent on the page likely points to a content issue. Polish up the content or page design to increase the effectiveness of your message. And, if you’ve got strong stats for a page, make sure you’re showcasing your best message there!
Geographic Reach
Watching the geographic patterns behind your website can be very interesting. Sure, you’re likely to get some traffic from outside of your target market, but if you are in the small business category you might be able to use that to your advantage. For example, if you have professional connections out of state, watch for traffic from those areas. It could be that a previous client or colleague is quietly taking interest in your business. Because you can often tell the city that traffic is coming from, you can often tie that to your contact. I’ve used that opportunity to reach out to those people who might be “scoping out” my business offerings.
Referring Sites
Where are your visits coming from? Do you have a fair amount of traffic from social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter? Continuous engagement on these sites puts your brand in front of large audiences every day. Use that opportunity to link back to meaningful and relevant content on your site that would provide value to other social media users. Are you getting referring traffic from a client, vendor, or another third-party website? If you are fortunate enough to develop collaborative relationships with other businesses who link to your site, be sure to recognize and thank them for the referral traffic they garner.
Traffic as a Motivator
Finally, I’d argue that the analytics behind a website can be an effective source of motivation. Days that I blog and post links on social media sites see a dramatic spike in overall traffic. Creating new, meaningful, and relevant content through a blog, calendar, community, or educational forum gives people reason to revisit your site. Letting that content get stale, out of date, and doldrum decreases the effectiveness of your message and your overall traffic. Watching the analytics behind your site can be a great motivator to continue to craft great website content to encourage “revisits.” And, the percent of “new visits” to your site can help you to gauge how many new impressions you are making through traditional sales calls or networking. Don’t have analytics available to you? Talk to your web vendor to get them set up today. It’s an easy, inexpensive process that can be of great value to your company.
If you are ready to take your website and internet strategy to the next level, we’d love to help. Contact Ampersand today to see how you can reach your full brand potential.
