Using Web Analytics to Improve Your IAQ & Environmental Business

Is your website generating the type and quantity of business leads to produce a strong return on investment? If it isn't you need to become familiar with web analytics.  According to Wikipedia, "Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage."  In simple terms web analytics tell you what is happening when someone visits your environmental website.
 
There are two main types of web analytics, off-site and on-site analytics.  Off-site web analytics include a website's potential audience, visibility and buzz.  On-site analytics measure a website visitor's experience at a specific website.  Did a visitor enter the website on the home page or begin at another part of the website and once there how long did they remain?  This information can be incredibly valuable when reviewing the effectiveness of an indoor air quality or environmental website's ability to create business opportunities and increase company revenues.
 
Information from web analytics can also help determine if a website is properly positioned and has appropriate traffic volume.  It will give real insight as to what visitors are doing during their visit. Since, in most cases the goal is to create a sale or begin a transaction, web analytics will tell you how successful your website is at converting visitors to customers.
 
Businesses always need to know what is working and what isn't in order to maximize their return on investment.  Both product and service providing companies can learn and implement necessary changes from the data provided from web analytics.
 
There are a number of web analytic tools currently available to help monitor a website's effectiveness.  They range from expensive software programs to free services such as Google Analytics that report such information as:

• How many visitors you have and in what specific time periods
• Which web pages are visitors landing on when visiting the website
• How many, and which pages, are visited
• How long are visitors remaining at the website and from where are visitors leaving the website
• What are the demographics of the visitors including from what city, state or country
• What is the conversation rate for visitors becoming customers and what is the revenue per click
• Effectiveness of Adword campaigns

Most of the information provided by web analytic tools can be graphed in user friendly formats. These can be used to compare web traffic with any marketing initiatives that a company may be promoting.  For example, if an email campaign is underway, is the website seeing a spike in traffic and are visitors landing on the pages you have links to in the email campaign?  Analyses of this data can help fine tune specific marketing campaigns and the company's website to make them more effective.  The web analytics' review process should enlighten management about what is and what isn't working, and what can be done to improve the customer experience. 
 
Another website worth visiting is Alexa which provides free web traffic metrics for any website you want to learn more about.  This is a great tool to compare the web traffic from your specific company with any of your competitor's websites.
 
Cochrane & Associates, LLC, the environmental, mold and indoor air quality industries' only dedicated marketing, public relations and business development consulting firm has been working with clients to develop websites that provide ROI and web analytics are an essential component for measuring that success.  Companies need to know which marketing campaigns are driving web traffic and how well is the website converting visitors to customers.
 
We hope you make monitoring web analytics a regular part of your marketing and sales process.  To learn more about web analytics or to learn how you can improve your customers' experience we invite you to contact the professionals at Cochrane & Associates.
 
About the author:
Paul Cochrane is the founder and president of Cochrane & Associates, LLC.  The company is a business development, marketing and public relations consulting firm specializing in the IAQ and environmental industries.  Mr. Cochrane is a 13 year veteran of the industry and has been a frequent guest author in industry publications and trainer for IAQ and environmental companies.  
 
For more information about how Cochrane & Associates can help your business thrive please visit: