Analytics – Your Ability to Avoid Repeating your Same Mistakes
Traffic analysis is the foundation to successfully managing your marketing efforts. You can track everything from unique visitors to time-on-site to PPC ad success. You will be able to tell if you are getting traffic from referring sites (such as your blog, social media posts or affiliates) or from organic traffic (searches for your name or other keywords). This data will be crucial as you move forward with specific marketing campaigns and tactics.
Nearly three-quarters of large enterprises consider the Web analytics technologies that enable their organizations to quantify visitor traffic across their sites to be indispensable.
What is Web Analytics?
Web Analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage. Website Analytics provides you the opportunity to become more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.
“It doesn't do any good to use Web analytics to produce cool charts and reports but then fail to make adjustments to improve your site's performance!”
Let Web Analytics Help You
Why do many small businesses build Web sites, invest in online marketing campaigns and then devote little or no effort to analyzing the return on their investment? Here are some ways Analytics can help:
You can evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
If you’re using PPC, you need to see what’s performing and what isn’t. Web analytics tools let you see which search engines are sending you traffic as well as the most popular keywords used to find your site.
You need to know where your traffic is coming from, and why.
Are search engines your site's biggest source of traffic, or are you receiving a majority of your traffic from other websites/mediums?
You need to know what users like and don't like about your website.
Website monitoring tools identify your site's most requested pages, as well as your most common entry pages and exit pages.
Analytics helps you identify defects and missing pages.
It’s important to not have broken pages or missing pages. By utilizing analytics, you can avoid having costly customer experience nightmares with 404 pages or browser related issues.Analytics allow you to track conversions and goals and increase ROI. It’s always great to get a sale or lead, but it’s even more rewarding to know where that lead came from, so you can increase your marketing effectiveness.
“Getting the right web analytics tool is only half the battle; the real focus of your web analytics program should be the people who work with it.”
Analytics is More than Just How Many People Visited Your Site
There’s more to Analytics than just your website… you need to have a coordinated effort to track your targeted keywords in major search engines as well as follow and track how your competition stacks against you and what they are doing.
It is important to understand where you rank on specific keywords and terms, and to see your progress on improving your overall rankings. You also want to see how your competition is doing, and if they are making gains or losses in their keyword focuses. Improving your keyword rankings increases your organic traffic, and also increases your ability to capture more leads and sales.
Analytics Doesn’t Help you unless you Take Action
Analytics are great… it lets you know what is working, what isn’t, and where things need to be adjusted and fixed. But analytics alone does not solve your problems. You must be proactive and take charge in rectifying and updating your content and site to improve your numbers.
“Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.”
