Do you have a website without any analytics installed?
Do you have analytics installed, but you never look at the numbers, because they’re a bit scary and there are SO MANY OF THEM?
Do you have analytics installed, and you do open it up every now and then, but never get further than wondering why you have such a following in Newcastle? Read on my friend.
I’d like to give you the lowdown on why all bloggers or website owners need to use analytics. After this you can head to my blog to find out HOW to add it to your site, and following that next month we’ll look at WHAT you should look at once you’re in there.
Q. WHY DO SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS NEED TO UNDERSTAND WEBSITE ANALYTICS?
A. Simply, so that you can make informed decisions and set measurable goals. Looking at the data is generally much better than going with your gut.
Here are 5 really basic reasons why you need analytics for your small business:
1. View growth:
By using analytics you can set measurable goals, document progress over time, identify patterns.
2. Research your current user demographic:
Like I have said before, knowing your audience is imperative to targeting the right people for marketing, or for understanding their needs when designing a website. If your users are mostly on their android phones in rural communities, you need to consider page speed loading on slow 3G connections, and mobile optimisation, but if they’re mostly professionals on their mega-screens in the big city, your web design can probably accommodate all the abstract images and inspirational vistas you want.
3. Understand what blog posts are working:
Knowing the type of content that is really engaging your users is useful when planning out your future content schedule. You can also go back to improve those posts.
4. Which pages are working?
Understanding the pages people are navigating to, how long they stay, and when they leave (if it’s fast, they are not finding what they need) means you can fix problems and optimise those pages to convert.
5. Where are they coming from?
Is all that effort on social media turning into sales? Does anyone click through those emails? Should you still be paying for a listing on Yelp? You can see real proof of your incoming channels.
So if your only info on site traffic is a hit counter widget like it’s 1999, get on it.
If you haven’t added Google analytics to your WordPress website yet, find out how on my previous post How to Add Google Analytics to Your WordPress Website.
Right, now I’ve convinced you to start looking at your numbers, and you’ve got analytics installed, let’s try to sort the wheat from the chaff, the need-to-knows from the who-knows-what.
With so many numbers available, the answer to this question is that there is so single solution for every business, but you can consider two things: what your goals are, and what stage you’re at.
Your small business might only be in the very initial start up phase, where your business consists of you, looking for your first clients, building your network from scratch. Or you might be employing 10 people by now, and growing your sales revenue by the day.
If you’re that first example, at the beginning of your journey when you’re looking for validation and positioning your offering, you must focus on engagement metrics and feedback from users. Later on, you’ll focus on growth metrics. Once you’ve established a product or service people love, it’s time to spread the word and increase the bottom line.
NOTE: once you’ve moved on to tracking growth metrics you’ll realise that they are all relative. You need to decide what your goal is, what you consider your most important metric for growth, and focus on that.
ABC, EASY AS 123
Once you’re clear on your business goals, start by looking at the ABC of Google Analytics:
Acquisition: How many people are visiting my website, and where are they coming from?
Behaviour: Is my content effective?
Conversion: Are visitors taking the action I want them to?
You’ll see that Google have put these right there on screen, in your dashboard menu, handy.
Go ahead, have a browse through, there is some interesting stuff in there, but today I’m going to start with the 5 numbers you can get to grips with first. Because 5 is plenty for anybody, and as you look at those, you’ll naturally have questions which will lead you to other metrics.
I’d suggest you look at these around once a fortnight. Try and do it on a regular basis, so you get the big picture, and begin to understand the rhythm of your business – how often things change, it means you’ll be able to identify spikes, but also ignore momentary dips. At some point you might prefer to have a quick look more regularly, and when you’re pushing the big traffic, and hopefully have a team of staff to do it for you, you’ll be enquiring daily.
Show me the metrics – What numbers should you begin looking at on google analytics?
Sorry I’ll get on with it now
1. Where are users coming from? Acquisition > Overview
Your Acquisition overview will show you the percentage and numbers coming from search, social, email, and all your other channels. You know what effort you’ve been putting in on those channels, is it working?
2. What impact does Social Media have? Acquisition > Social.
Here you can see information about the networks where your content gets shared, your on-site user engagement, and the flow of social users through your site.
3. What are users looking at? Behaviour > Site Content > Content Drilldown
Sort by page views to see the most popular pages over time, then scan your eyes over the time spent on the page. If tonnes of people are going to a page because it has an enticing title, are they staying to read the content? If a page is consistently doing particularly well, make sure it has a call to action on it, an upsell, something to maximise it’s popularity.
4. Bounce rate – Are they finding what they need? Audience > Overview
Google defines a bounce as a single-page session on your site, so the bounce rate is the percentage of single interaction visits to a website. As a rule of thumb, a range of 26-40% is excellent. 41-55% is roughly average. 56 to 70 percent is above average, but may not be cause for alarm. Anything over 70 percent is disappointing. If you’re consistently 70% and above, take a good hard look at your website and ask yourself if it is really doing it’s job.
5. Are people taking action? Conversions > Goals > Overview
A conversion can be a booking, subscription to a mailing list, a purchase, pretty much anything you can track. Google Analytics enables you to track these by setting goals for yourself. It can be as simple as tracking how many people reach a thank you page, but you’ll be able to see clear growth (or not) over time.
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