Measure what you Manage, How Small Businesses Get Results From Their website
Step 0: Get an account with Google Analytics
If your business has a web presence that you expect to turn into business results like new sales, new client introductions, customer service and building relationships you’ll never know how well you’re doing until you track and analyze the data.
There are plenty of web tracking tools to choose from but what I recommend and use with clients in Google Analytics, the free analytics software by Google.
Have a Website to Generate Revenue? Enable the eCommerce Analysis
If you want to drive visitors to a page for a purchase or newsletter signup you can track successful conversions using Goals and Funnels. Enable eCommerce reporting and the eCommerce Analysis report set. From your dashboard, go to edit settings. Then in the main website profile information, go to edit in the right upper corner this will take you to the Edit Profile Information. Here you’ll find the e-commerce section, select Yes and save changes.
Machiavelli Meets Business Intel, GAnalytics Style
The End, The Means, GAnalytics Goals and Funnels
In GAnalytics the end is called a goal. It’s the action your visitor takes that you defined as important. It’s the end result you want to track to show progress towards your business goals. In GAnalytics the means is called a funnel. It’s the path you want your prospects to take in order to reach your defined goal.
For example, a small business looking to build a relationship with prospects through its email would define a goal as newsletter signup and the funnel as landing on a recent blog post then entering their information on the sign up box on the sidebar.
Falling Off the Bandwagon Never Felt So Good
Usually, if you’re not tracking you have no idea where your clients and prospects go other than the place you’d like them to go like an add to cart button. So without tracking all you know are your successful transactions. You know nothing about how many other people were there and just didn’t pull the trigger on going forward or worse started to then didn’t complete the transaction.
Tracking lets you know where your visitors fall off your bandwagon
When you have your ends and means defined you’ll now have the data needed to see where your visitors fall off the desired path you want them to take. This lets you know more than just an abandon rate but exactly where your customer was just before they left your site.
Tracking Lets Your Business Read Between the Lines
Get context of your visitors intent and expectations when coming to your website.
GAnalytics lets you learn how visitors came to your site by the referring url and if they searched for a phrase and went to your site, you’ll know what they were looking for in Google. You can also tell who is sending you visitors by looking at the referring URLs
Your homepage isn’t the one place visitors go to when they visit your domain.
Visitors come to your website from search engines that dig through all your web pages. GAnalytics will show you what pages they came to first, known as the landing page, the last page they were on before leaving your site, known as the bounce page, and which pages they viewed.
Who Yelled Fire? Bounce Rate and the Bum Rush Off Your Site
An interesting factor you’ll get to know is what pages on your website is most often the last page your visitor sees. This will tell you where you’re loosing their interest or attention or need to deliver more value.
From tracking you’ll be able to see which categories of products are most popular. There’s an 80/20 somewhere on your site, and you’ll want to maximize the 20% that’s bringing in you more business.
Get to Know Google Optimizer. Another Free Google tool
Does She Want the Black Dress or the Little Black Dress?
Sure you’re prospects are looking for what you’re offering on your website but did you know that you can test out different parts of your page to see which gets a better response out of your visitors. Maybe they were looking for a black dress and you show them the little black dress and a whole new association pops int their head bringing them closer to a sale.
You wouldn’t know any of that is possible unless you are doing split testing.
Without split testing your are your own worst enemy to reaching your prospects
I’m not talking about Christan Slater, or even Sybil. Split testing lets you try out different headlines, colors, offers, guarnutees to different groups of your visitors and tracks the results of those tests.
Conversion Testing Rules of Thumb
For every 100 conversions test 1 page element over 2 weeks. That’ll give you enough time to see results and make adjustments. Once you find a winner, replace the old variable and keep trying to beat your results. Split testing lets your business sharpen its personal best in conversion which means more sales, happier customers and more growth.
Never Spazz Out on the High of a Good Revenue Day
When your website is giving your a great revenue day. Don’t think you’re looking a gift horse in the mouth by not understanding why you’re performing so well. Analyze your website data and see where they are coming from what they were looking for and make sure its something you can repeat again!
The Holiday Season: a Retailer’s Shot in the Arm
Many retail businesses are cyclical. Sometimes earning as much in the last quarter of the year as the previous two combined. I’m going to say it again, tracking will tell show you the trends in visitors coming in, from where, and what they are looking for. Make the most of your peak season by opening all lanes for green on your website.
Aside from your internal tracking, Google can offer you an industry wide tracking from Google Insights.
An example of what Google Insights can show for an industry is a comparison between basketball, football and golf in the US over the last 12 months. What can you tell about people’s interest in these sports? What sport specific business wouldn’t benefit from knowing this?
Look at this chart directly below. This shows the results of the top geographic areas for the keyword football.
What regionally targeted business wouldn’t want to know where their most interested prospective visitors might be coming from during football season?? Take a look at the second graph for footballs most interested US areas and key searches.
This is a hopefully brief, but long blog post, overview of using Analytics on your website to help grow your business. If you feel I should cover more or have questions, please comment below!
