You spend lots of money on getting a website built, but what do you do with it then? Do you ever check what traffic is going to the website, where the traffic is coming from and what improvements need to be made?
Your website needs to bring a return on investment in the same way as the rest of your marketing needs to add to your bottom line.
Google Analytics is a free tool which you can use to identify the success of your website in terms of traffic, keywords and what visitors are doing.
You need to register with Google Analytics and you may need to ask your website designer to include the ‘urchin’ code on your website. (If you have a WordPress website, contact me for help)
- Track trends not individual days. The numbers on a website can be misleading – your own visits for example are included, so don’t get too hung up on the numbers. The general trend over time should be increasing.
- In the Standard Reporting Menu, look at Content > Site Content > Landing Pages to see the pages at which people entered your site. Check the bounce rate on these pages. A high bounce rate may indicate that your visitor was not engaged by the content of the page. Think about including more calls to actions
- Use the Audience > Visitors Flow report to identify how visitors are moving through your site. Are they flowing through the site in the way you had planned? If not, or if they are dropping out too early, think about making the ‘where to go next’ clearer.
- Use Sources > Referrals to identify which sites are driving traffic to your site. Spend more time updating content on these sites.
- Use the Social Reports (under Traffic Sources) to identify how successful your Social Networking is at driving traffic to your site.