One thing I often find when working with clients on marketing strategy is that a lot of people have websites, but not many look at their website analytics. In fact, most of my clients are not really sure what they are looking for and – once we start studying the statistics – are amazed by the wealth of knowledge there. For those of you who have access to Google Analytics for your website, today we are going to address a few of my favorite stats: Source, Page Views, and Time on Page/Bounce Rate. These are particularly good ones if you want practical information that you can incorporate into your marketing plan now.
First, I recommend starting by setting the time range of your search at the top. Whenever you are looking at data, it helps to have a larger sample size. Google Analytics tends to default to give you one week of data, which is too short a sample range to be meaningful for you. Instead, try going back to the beginning of the year, the beginning of the quarter, or a full year back so you can see more data.
- Source
If you have never reviewed your Google Analytics before, knowing the Source may be surprising and informative for you. This section shows you how your visitors are getting to your page. If you do much online marketing, paid advertising, social media marketing, partner marketing, if you have backlinks on other people’s sites, this shows you which sites people clicked through from. You can see the volume of leads that are finding you from each backlink you planted. In the menu, go to Acquisition/All Traffic/Source-Medium.
Why it is helpful: If you are doing a lot of online marketing, this will show you pretty clearly what is working and what is not. If something is working well, you now know you should spend more time or money on it. If something is not driving much traffic to your site, you should ask yourself how much energy or money you want to spend pursuing it. This is also evidence to see whether the paid ads you are running are effectively bringing leads to your site.
- Page Views
This stat is a handy way for you to see which pages of your site are the most and least viewed. In the Google Analytics menu, go to Behavior/Site Content/All Pages. You will get a ranked list that usually starts with the top viewed page, and you can view search results as far back as you need to.
Why it is helpful: This can be an informative way to learn which pages people are viewing on your website. If you have blogs on your site, you can see the most viewed blogs, which is great information for you to figure out how to leverage those blogs even more. If you have product pages on your site, now is your chance to see which ones are capturing the most interest. Knowing what people care about allows you to tailor your marketing plan more effectively.
Knowing what people care about allows you to tailor your #marketing plan more effectively. #smb Share on X- Time on Page, Bounce Rate
These are two different statistics, but they might tell you a better story when taken together. You can also find this information on the Behavior/Site Content/All Pages section. If you have designed your website to encourage people to click between your pages and content (and ideally you have – especially if you have a blog), then this shows you how well your plan is working.
Why it is helpful: “Time on Page” tells you about how long people spent reading the material on that page, on average. Ultimately, the longer they spend on a page, the more likely they are to convert or at the very least remember you for later. You want people to spend more time on each page.
“Bounce Rate” is also informative. If someone bounces, that means that they landed on one page, took no actions (clicks, for example) on your page, and then left it. Even if they read a blog for five minutes while they were there, they did not take any action. So, if you are seeing a high rate of visitors bouncing, you should think about creating obvious links to other pages within your site to encourage people to get to know you as much as possible before they leave. If someone has spent a lot of time on your page and then bounces, they were a missed opportunity, because you obviously held their attention with your first page but failed to find a way to keep them moving between pages.
These two stats taken together can give you a useful look at your visitors’ behavior that can help you create new pathways between content to try to keep people with you until they are ready to convert.
Any time you spend studying Google Analytics can vastly improve your #marketing. #smb #smallbiz Share on XOf course, Google Analytics holds a ton of other information for you about your website visitors. Any time you spend studying Google Analytics can vastly improve your marketing. So, take some time browsing. Learn all about the people who visit you and the actions they are taking. I happen to like these three (actually four) stats, because they tell a story that allows you to make immediate modifications to your content and your marketing funnel that can help you be more effective and efficient.