When you mention website analytics to anybody, usually the 1st words let out in response are "Google Analytics". Google Analysis is one analysing tool of many that are available to you. Google has the benefit because it is free. But to the 1st time viewer it can be disconcerting to see all the available information, and most newbies haven't any idea where to start. In truth most business that have analytics installed focus strictly on the volume of traffic which has visited their web site. But just using analysis for this purpose is an error and means you're also missing out on some valuable marketing data.
First things first though! To harvest the advantages of website analytics you first have to install it. Dependent on which analysing package you select , installing the required tracking code may be something that you can do yourself, or you could need to pass this task over to your web-master to perform for you. The key nonetheless is to get analysing installed straight away after your website has been built, even though you haven't got any plans on having a look at the info for a period of time. By doing this, the info will build up over time, and you will be able to show a before and after comparison, when you perform particular tasks design to force traffic back to your site.
A vital tip would be to ensure your tracking code is applied to all your website's pages. And remember to add them to new pages you create in days to come. If you happen to have got a dynamic web site that allows you to immediately create new pages using templates, then it is easy enough to apply the tracking code right into the templates, that way new pages will instantly have the code embedded on creation.
So onto the crucial part - what must you be searching for within your analysis dashboard? Most SEO professionals agree that internet sites owners should actually target the following statistics measurements:
1. Key Performance Indicators (KPI) - This suggests you need to identify what your principal goals are for your website. So as an example you will have a new promoting initiative that has been set up to generate more traffic to your internet site and to gain you more new buyers. Using analysing to check that your traffic and conversion rates are accelerating will tell you if your initiative is working, or if you want to rethink the way you are doing things.
2. Referring Sources - This appears under Traffic Sources/Direct Traffic and gives us a top level view of how many pages and how many visitors we've had, and from which websites they are clicking through from. If you're stumping up for organic search engine optimisation, or if you have placed a marketing video on YouTube (for examples), you want to know if the search websites and/or YouTube are good sources for sending folks to your site. But whether or not the numbers you are seeing are reasonably low, you also need to know if folk are just picking up the phone and calling you, after seeing your telephone number listed in the search engines (e.g. Google Plus Local listing) or from your YouTube video, before deciding if this is money being wisely spent or not.
3. Bounce Rate - This is defined as the amount of folks who land on your website, and then exit immediately after reviewing that landing page, without initially clicking through to other pages on your internet site. In the eyes of Google, having a high bounce rate means that the particular page doesn't have high quality and meaning full content, and that is the reason why folks are clicking away from your internet site. Though this may not always be the reason why folk are clicking away, Google will still penalize your website rankings if they see a high bounce rate. Therefore even though your plan is to have a single lander with a form embedded for contact, you need to make a 'Thank You ' page the visitor will get to mechanically after sending their details in the form, so as not to enhance your bounce rate more than you've got to.
4. Conversion Rate - Knowing the volume of traffic your website is getting is of low value to you without knowing what your conversion rate is. Converting your traffic to customers or subscribers is what it is all about. Its better to have 10 visitor visit your internet site and have 1 subscribe to your service, than to have a million visitors with no subscribers remotely. By identifying where your visitors are coming from, and which of those convert for you, will enable you to judge your web selling budget and put extra money into the places that are driving more converted traffic for you.
5. Social Media Activity - Right now social signals are huge when it comes to Google considering how relevant your internet site is. If you know what subjects and talks are driving the most website. Traffic to your internet site will assist you in planning and social your social media efforts to boost traffic and awareness of your brand.
There are several measurement signals that are typically available, for example 'returning v new visitor' comparisons, length of stay in your internet site, number of pages visited, for example. That may also prove to be handy. Nonetheless as a amateur you need to focus on the 5 measurements above till you are used to reading the data and fully understand it.
First things first though! To harvest the advantages of website analytics you first have to install it. Dependent on which analysing package you select , installing the required tracking code may be something that you can do yourself, or you could need to pass this task over to your web-master to perform for you. The key nonetheless is to get analysing installed straight away after your website has been built, even though you haven't got any plans on having a look at the info for a period of time. By doing this, the info will build up over time, and you will be able to show a before and after comparison, when you perform particular tasks design to force traffic back to your site.
A vital tip would be to ensure your tracking code is applied to all your website's pages. And remember to add them to new pages you create in days to come. If you happen to have got a dynamic web site that allows you to immediately create new pages using templates, then it is easy enough to apply the tracking code right into the templates, that way new pages will instantly have the code embedded on creation.
So onto the crucial part - what must you be searching for within your analysis dashboard? Most SEO professionals agree that internet sites owners should actually target the following statistics measurements:
1. Key Performance Indicators (KPI) - This suggests you need to identify what your principal goals are for your website. So as an example you will have a new promoting initiative that has been set up to generate more traffic to your internet site and to gain you more new buyers. Using analysing to check that your traffic and conversion rates are accelerating will tell you if your initiative is working, or if you want to rethink the way you are doing things.
2. Referring Sources - This appears under Traffic Sources/Direct Traffic and gives us a top level view of how many pages and how many visitors we've had, and from which websites they are clicking through from. If you're stumping up for organic search engine optimisation, or if you have placed a marketing video on YouTube (for examples), you want to know if the search websites and/or YouTube are good sources for sending folks to your site. But whether or not the numbers you are seeing are reasonably low, you also need to know if folk are just picking up the phone and calling you, after seeing your telephone number listed in the search engines (e.g. Google Plus Local listing) or from your YouTube video, before deciding if this is money being wisely spent or not.
3. Bounce Rate - This is defined as the amount of folks who land on your website, and then exit immediately after reviewing that landing page, without initially clicking through to other pages on your internet site. In the eyes of Google, having a high bounce rate means that the particular page doesn't have high quality and meaning full content, and that is the reason why folks are clicking away from your internet site. Though this may not always be the reason why folk are clicking away, Google will still penalize your website rankings if they see a high bounce rate. Therefore even though your plan is to have a single lander with a form embedded for contact, you need to make a 'Thank You ' page the visitor will get to mechanically after sending their details in the form, so as not to enhance your bounce rate more than you've got to.
4. Conversion Rate - Knowing the volume of traffic your website is getting is of low value to you without knowing what your conversion rate is. Converting your traffic to customers or subscribers is what it is all about. Its better to have 10 visitor visit your internet site and have 1 subscribe to your service, than to have a million visitors with no subscribers remotely. By identifying where your visitors are coming from, and which of those convert for you, will enable you to judge your web selling budget and put extra money into the places that are driving more converted traffic for you.
5. Social Media Activity - Right now social signals are huge when it comes to Google considering how relevant your internet site is. If you know what subjects and talks are driving the most website. Traffic to your internet site will assist you in planning and social your social media efforts to boost traffic and awareness of your brand.
There are several measurement signals that are typically available, for example 'returning v new visitor' comparisons, length of stay in your internet site, number of pages visited, for example. That may also prove to be handy. Nonetheless as a amateur you need to focus on the 5 measurements above till you are used to reading the data and fully understand it.
About the Author:
Peter Selby is a search website consultant at Alchemy Digital Media, an internet site design and SEO company in Fort Myers, FL.
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