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781.844.9148
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Greetings!
You work hard for your business. Wouldn't it be helpful to know which marketing expenditures are driving website traffic, where you should focus your networking efforts, whether anyone is reading your blog posts? Google Analytics provides a wealth of information rich in actionable insights. Its outstandingly intuitive interface allows you to customize your views of the data by time period, or drill down on individual metrics to get more detailed information.
Let's review some of the key data that Google Analytics provides and how you can use the information. Still not sure? Contact us for help. |
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"Hi, Google sent me." Where on the web were your visitors, just prior to visiting your site? Google Analytics refers to these sites as traffic sources, and shows the numbers of your visitors who come from search engines, and which ones specifically. If you're thinking of advertising, it would certainly help to know which search engines send a lot of traffic to your site, and which ones don't. Traffic sources also shows the number of visitors who accessed your site directly (by typing in your website url), providing you a sense of the effectiveness of your brand building activities.
Are you running in circles? You're blogging weekly, sending out a monthly email newsletter, and posting on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. It all takes a lot of time and you're not sure the effort is worthwhile. Traffic sources shows whether particular blogs and social media sites are sending traffic to your website. Let's say your analytics show a big spike in traffic. You can drill down on the date of the spike, to see the topic that you blogged about or posted, enabling you to better target your future marketing efforts to topics that resonate with your audience. |
Did they hang out, or was your site more like a "drive-thru"? Businesses tend to focus a lot of effort and expense on getting customers to their websites through search engine optimization, but you shouldn't stop there. Once visitors land on your site, it's important that they are able to get the information they need. Google Analytics will tell you how long visitors spend on your site (time on site), as well as the bounce rate, or percent of visitors who land on your site and leave without exploring beyond the landing page. Generally, a high bounce rate is bad; you want to see yours drop over time.
Did you know you had visitors from Brazil? Your Google Analytics demographics data shows the geography of your visitors. Starting with a world map, you can drill down to country, state and town to see exactly where your visitors hail from. A smart way to use this information is for targeting networking activities, advertising and marketing efforts.
You're a PC guy, but your visitors are Mac types. Or is it the other way around? Do you have a lot of visitors using mobile devices, and if so, are they iPads, Blackberry smartphones or Droids? Google Analytics shows you not just which browsers your visitors are using, but also operating systems and mobile devices, so you can optimize your website to look best in your visitors' most commonly used browsers.
Words matter. You call it a PFD; to your visitors it's a life jacket. What terms do your users search for when they are looking for your site? Website language needs to be user-centric, yet websites frequently reflect industry jargon that can make your site more difficult for target clients to find. The keywords data in Google Analytics are the terms visitors used to find your site. Review the most common terms to learn the terminology used by your customers, and make changes in language on your website and in marketing materials. If you see your blog post titles in your keywords, you know that your blog is drawing visitors.
Haven't I seen you somewhere before? Key metrics include not just the number of visitors and how much time they spent on your site, but also the depth of their visits - known in Google Analytics as pages/visit. Is your home page content compelling, drawing visitors in to explore other sections of the site? Which pages get the most traffic? If your most important pages aren't getting visitors, take a look at the pages that lead to them, and create compelling teaser content to encourage users to delve further. Are visits primarily from new visitors or returning visitors? A high percentage of returning visitors indicates that your content is inspiring visitors to come back. |
Want more? Facebook and Twitter offer statistics too. Remember also to keep an eye on your Facebook Insights and Twitter @mentions and favorites. Social media is social, so interaction is key. Posts which generate a lot of user activity are resonating with your audience. Consider the post that caused the engagement - the subject matter, the tone, and the time of day. Are they strictly informative? Entertaining? Do they include a link? If so, is it to a landing page, a photo, a video? Do they include Twitter hash tags or mention other users? Once you answer these questions, you will be able to create future posts that are engaging for your audience. |
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Need a helping hand learning or managing your social media? Get ongoing support with our programs for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. |
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A Recent Testimonial |
"Initially, we believed that our website was in pretty good shape. To verify, we engaged Online Amplify to conduct a detailed analysis. Well, Nancy dug in and we were amazed at the level of detail provided in her recommendations. Everything from keyword suggestions, to modified copy, to page formatting. Very comprehensive and very useful. Clearly money well spent."
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Measuring social media effectiveness
It's important to ask yourself why you are using social media for your business. Whether it's to build brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, increase visibility for your events, or any number of other reasons, you should have goals in mind. Then you can use your analytics to measure the effectiveness of different tactics, and spend more time on the ones that work best.
Regards,
Nancy
President and Founder, Online Amplify Named one of Mass High Tech's 5 startups to watch - 2012 |
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