SEEING WHERE YOU ARE
WITHOUT ANALYTICS, you are looking at your website as if you were blindfolded. Jumping to conclusions can be an online leap in the dark. Conversely, quality data is not biased. It will help you to see where you are and where you should be going. Supplementing your intuition and experience with analytical stats will help signpost the fastest route for you to take.
Prior to that leap forward, even before making a side shuffle, check the analytics to see if the evidence supports your intended move.
Bolstering trial and error with facts will highlight what you are doing well. Moreover, you will see more clearly where website improvements can be made and why early action would be advantageous.
Analytics will always be there in the background, as you change direction or speed up your business.
There is no need to be afraid of the quantity of numbers, for they embody reasonably easy to follow information, ready and waiting for you.
No data bank can figure out what to do, of course. Rather, it will provide you with a factual basis on which to build and adjust your digital marketing plans. Analysed data is changing the game. Business promotion can become less of a gamble.
CUSTOMER BEHAVIOUR
That’s just as well, for consumers are demanding more responsive and direct service, delivered through their everyday technology. They have become impatient and intolerant. Holding on for customer service responses is no longer acceptable; impersonal mailers are almost entirely ignored; and content that waffles is a waste of space.
Data gives you the power to interact, be relevant and impart solutions. Websites that positively touch the nerves of customers and prospects are the ones that help small companies to become big businesses and corporations to strengthen their dominance.
As never before, enterprise has the means to glean accurate insight into the activities, preferences and desires out there in the marketplace. The best websites are supplying engagement and information in exchange for personal facts.
It does not have to be about trendy “big data”. Blogs can be a simple but useful tool for gathering intelligence. Forums, discussion boards and customer groups are among other methods.
Few options, however, provide the quality and depth of information available through Google Analytics, of value for web beginners and old hands alike. New techniques are opening customers’ doors for you.
COLOSSAL AMOUNT
There is a colossal amount of information available and experts are plucking out a wealth of material about how well their site is performing, what kind of visitors are taking an interest, when they are doing so, how and why.
Smaller businesses should not be daunted by the size of the data pile. The basics are simple, yet sufficiently sophisticated to facilitate a tasty flavour of what is going on and where a rethink would be of commercial benefit.
Log on to Google Analytics and three key statistics are presented: the average visit duration, number of pages visited, plus the bounce rate, that being the percentage of visitors who considered only one page before quitting your site.
There is so much more, including most viewed pages, top landing pages, main exited pages, referred traffic as opposed to direct entries, keyword sources and from where, geographically, contact has been made.
Complicated? Yes, but Google Analytics has the capability to assess the data and you can customise the way that results are presented. No matter what your customer contact approach might be, take advantage of this splendidly versatile platform.
The analytics are there to help you understand audiences and apply findings to your sales and marketing efforts, as you watch the online journeys being made by people who have shown interest in you.
With data support you should be able to keep pace with customer expectations and needs. Strangely ignored by so many, it is working for the rest of us.
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