Everyone is well-aware of the advantages of web analytics. It offers you an overview of your visitors and how it fares against the intended audience. You can use it to formulate business strategies and market your offerings. Most importantly, it helps you increase your bottom line.
If you’re new to web performance tracking and data analytics, getting started can be extremely intimidating. But this step-by-step breakdown can help you learn how to monitor your website for various purposes.
Getting Started
Naturally, the first step to achieving a result is through defining success or the end-goal. What do you want the visitors to do when they end up on your website? Do you want them to sign up for your newsletter to acquire new clients? Or do you want them to download your offers to generate leads?
The primary goal should align with your overall business goals, which could be anything from selling a product/service to registering for a course. After deciding the main objectives, you need to identify a suitable tracking tool to see your success rate in achieving this aim.
Choosing the Perfect Web Analytics Tool
Google Analytics (GA) is a freemium analytics tool that helps you track your site’s traffic. It offers the following features:
- It helps track your ROI
- Its internal split testing feature offers awesome insights
- It features an intuitive conversion tracking software
- It offers easy data integration with Google AdSense
- It provides simple easy-to-read reports
But GA comes with its own set of challenges, the primary being the steep learning curve. It keeps you blindsided as to where visitors are coming from due to missing, duplicate, or improper tracking codes.
So if you’re looking for alternatives to GA or just another ancillary tool to help you overcome the deficiencies of GA, check out Crazy Domains Web Analytics tool.
The web analytics tool is user-friendly and loaded with features that help you track your website users and visitors. Know your audience, measure their activity and engagement, and take action to improve your campaigns!
Key Metrics to Monitor
After getting the hang of the web analytics tool, you need to target the metrics you need to track. These KPIs change as per your final goal and you may cherry-pick the ones that work for you and leave out the ones that don’t.
Here are a few essential metrics to watch out for:
Traffic Source
You know you’re getting traffic, but where does it come from? Knowing your traffic origins will grant you knowledge of the ideal buyer looking for your business and the channels they go through to reach you. Then, you can revise your strategy and focus on the best sources of high-quality leads.
For instance, if you’re a next-gen brand offering wireless earphones, you’ll know your brand appeals to the millennials who visit your website through a redirect from your Instagram page. The next smart step is targeting this demographic through social media platforms.
You’ll find traffic originating from the following three sources:
- Search traffic from search engines like Yahoo!, Google, and Bing
- Referral traffic from email marketing links or social media promotions
- Direct traffic from those entering your address directly in their browser
Conversion Rate
You may be doing a good job of getting a decent amount of traffic, but how many of these lookers convert into bookers? You’ll know this by tracking your conversion rate.
This lets you know how many people visited your website and successfully completed the desired action (your business goal). This conversion rate could be based on the number of page loads, events, submits, downloads, and so on.
Exit Pages
Knowing why people are turning away from your page is as crucial as knowing why they came to you in the first place!
Whenever a visitor navigates through your website and leaves, the final page they visited is termed an “exit page.” The logic behind tracking your exit page rests on the assumption that the visitor was keen on knowing more about your business but left.
When you know your exit pages, you know which pages to tweak to make them more attractive and valuable to visitors. Adding interactive elements or media like videos can get them to stay longer.
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High-Traffic Pages
Your high-traffic pages are the cornerstone of your website. They attract the highest number of visitors, which means visitors find them the most valuable.
Find out the common denominator between these pages and you get the perfect recipe for an engaging page. Whether it’s using statistics and infographics or delighting the visitors with memes and GIFs, these small changes can make a huge difference in turning exit pages to high-traffic ones.
Put your data to good use
Now that you’ve figured out the basics of website analytics, make use of the data to take predictive and reparative actions. Optimise your web pages to grant your audience the best user experience. At the same time, leverage your social media handles and initiate email marketing campaigns to attract more visitors, STAT!