I’ve come across many clients or business owners who have their website, have their social media and may even have a paid advertising campaign. All of these things are great if that works for you and your business. One thing that seems to be missing is some sort of analytics to help prove that what you are doing is working for your business.
You want to see if there is some sort of return of investment, right? How do you determine where your leads are coming from? Where is your traffic coming from? You are running a paid campaign and you can easily tell how many visitors are clicking thru on your ads, but are they leaving as soon as they get there, how many pages do they visit, is your landing page the right page for your campaign? So many questions, how does one know?
Google Analytics is fairly easy to set up and it’s FREE! It is a great tool to determine how many visits (# of people to your site), how many pages views (total number of pages that are seen via all of the visitors to your site) and how many of those visitors are new or is returning (within the selected time period). Another data point that is helpful is where your traffic is coming from. You can find out if it is coming from someone directly typing in your web address, whether it is coming from organic search (a means of search engine optimization efforts), from paid advertising if you are running a campaign and if it is referral traffic, among many other things.
Referral traffic can be a number of things – such as social media like Facebook or Google +, it could be from Superpages, Yelp or basically any number of pages. The thing that would be helpful to know is who these referrals are. What if you are running an Adsense campaign and you want to know which sites are referring the most traffic? What if you have an ad or just a listing/citation like on Yelp and you see you are getting traffic there? A good thought here would be to ensure all of your information that is listed there is correct.
In my business, seeing the traffic from social is important so I can track whether my efforts from social to my site are working. Ideally I want those that go to my website to follow me on at least one social media platform. Those that follow me on social media, I’d like to get to know more about my business in hopes of converting and/or sharing with others. So, having this information can be helpful in my business for me personally and for clients that I am helping. I always ensure clients that I am working with have some form of analytics!
So, my parting thought, Google Analytics if free but costs your time; however if you are spending money on any form of marketing, it is worth your time to verify that your money and efforts are working…. unless, of course, you don’t care, then by all means, throw your money away! 😉 Check out my time is money blog for more on this sort of thing. 😉
Thanks for reading; I’d love to hear what you have to say so please feel free to leave a comment. If you need any help with your website as far as search engine optimization, paid advertising or social media marketing, I’d love to help so contact me and we can chat!
~Kristen
Absolutely! I use google analytics to show me which pages on my website get visited or left! Offers me a visual that I need to change up or do more research about who comes in!! great article! p
You nailed it.. it is great to A/B testing!
Great article! I agree, analytics are a great tool to measure traffic! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Patricia and you are welcome! 😉
I have Google Analytics right in my dashboard on both of my blogs too so I can see where the traffic is coming from. In the dashboard from GA I can see the demographics and the age range and what device they are using. It’s just amazing. Its an underutilitzed FREE tool!
It IS underutilized… what are you finding your demo to be?
Great post and it’s all so true. Who wouldn’t want to see what is working and what is a waste of money?
Right!
Reminds me of a lament I used to hear when I was president of the local chamber of commerce: “I’m wasting 50% of my advertising budget, but I don’t know which half.” The only way you’ll find out is if you track, and if you’re measuring your online efforts, Google Analytics is the way to go.
So true Jackie and thanks for adding that extra little bit… love the quote! 😉
Thanks for sharing! I just recently got into analyzing my Social Media and boy do I love it! I find it hard to believe that I let so much time pass where I wasn’t doing it!?! We definitely need to benchmark so that we can see what’s working and what’s not!
Did you use the tool that Rod mentioned – Social Metrics for Word Press? It’s fabulous!
Google Analytics is such an awesome tool. Its so great to identify what is working and what’s not working so that valuable time and resources aren’t wasted.
So true, it does give you insight into where thins are coming to help determine what you need to change, very true! Don’t want to waste time!
I think Google Analytics is a MUST HAVE! And, I’m not even all that into the technical side of things 😉 Great post!
Thanks Daveda.. I agree, it really is, even for the non-techies, it still provides valuable info!
Totally agree Kristen. Test and measure is key.
I am horrible at consistently reviewing my analytics but like balancing my books once a month, I try to schedule a little time to do it. It must be a right-brained vs. left-brained thing because there are a lot of people who love it…me, it’s just another necessary evil 🙂
I have just started using Google analytics and I love it. It is a great tool.
That’s awesome Christy. Are you finding out new and interesting tid bits on your business?
So true! It’s important to measure so you know if its working. Thanks for sharing.
Agreed, do YOU measure? 😉
Google Analytics is an important tool for business! Admittedly, I need to get better at understanding them!
Well, let me know if you need any help Holly! 😉
Totally agree with you, Kristen! Analytics are an important piece of the puzzle since they allow us to operate out of efficiency and really know what is happening from a scoreboard perspective.