I’m amazed how many people will say that their website doesn’t work for them, but when asked if they measure traffic or use a tool like Google Analytics, the answer is usually ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I think having login’.
Now the fact is that many companies’ websites don’t work for them and they don’t generate enough traffic or the right kind of traffic. However, as with any form or marketing, measurement is absolutely critical, so you can see what’s working, what’s not, and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Unfortunately, some people don’t measure their web traffic at all. This may be because they are unaware that tools like Google Analytics are actually FREE and can be installed relatively easily with a basic understanding of HTML code. If you are lucky enough to have a good content management system, this is made even easier without the need to understand website coding. Of course, most good web development companies should do this for you as part of the website launch process.
I think it’s fair to say that some people who have started researching Google Analytics have often only scratched the surface of how powerful this FREE tool really is.
The most common use is probably to check how much traffic a website is getting, along with the source of the traffic and what keyword someone has typed in, if they came through a search engine.
However, Google Analytics can provide much more relevant and useful information, for example, “bounce rate” can be a very important piece of information, this means the percentage of visits to a single page where the visitor left your site from the page of destiny without continuing. view any other page on the site. So you may have a lot of traffic, but if your bounce rate is high, this would suggest that the page is not relevant to visitors and your site is probably not working for you. Rather, this may be the same page that your specific campaign is targeting. In this case, the ‘bounce rate’ should not be disappointing.
You can also look at the average time people spend on your website, again if this figure is low and you don’t get any queries, as well as the ‘bounce rate’, this could suggest that your site visitors don’t perceive your site be relevant. It could also be an indication that the navigation to other relevant pages, for example the “Contact Us” function, is not clear.
Top exit pages can be another great piece of information, if visitors are browsing multiple pages on your site, but are missing them without receiving queries, then you may need to review your top exit pages and try to tweak/improve them.
Google Analytics is an amazing, underutilized tool with features that could fill a manual. The purpose of this article is simply to highlight its availability so that your business can start benefiting from its application.