Do you know how many customers your website is bringing in? How about current clients, are they using the website tools you built for them? Is your website doing everything it can possibly do to help your business?
If you’re unsure of the answers to any of these questions, then your business could benefit from taking a look at your website analytics.
Analytics is just a fancy word for the process of capturing and reviewing data for your website. A wide range tools and techniques exist to do this, that vary in price and focus. A longtime (free) favorite of web developers is Google Analytics, which provides detailed information on what pages visitors look at, how long visitors stay, where visitors are from, what devices visitors use, etc.
So, while it’s fun to look at how many people visit your site on a given day, the real power in the data is that it gives you the ability to measure your performance against your goals, the buzz word for which is key performance indicator (KPI).
A KPI (Key Performance Indicator) should immediately inform the reader how the business is performing which in turn should suggest what actions need to be taken. And if we are measuring the effectiveness of a website, the KPIs need to inform us how the site is doing in driving our business objectives. – unilytics.com
The process basically works like this:
- Define your business goals
ex. Increase revenue in the 4th quarter
ex. Increase the number of new client queries - Define how the website will help you reach those goals
ex. Online sales of new products x, y & z
ex. Search engine optimization for services and a contact form
- Define actions that are taken on the web site to attain those goals, i.e. KPIs
ex. Online purchasing OR higher conversion rate of browsers to buyers
ex. Page views of SEO optimized pages and number of contact form submissions - Monitor KPIs over time and make adjustments to the website to improve performance
If you’re interested in digging deeper, Unilytics.com has a great article on the subject, 5 Steps to Actionable Key Performance Indicators. Alternatively, if you’d like to talk to a web consultant about how your site can better help your business, Michael or Heidi at Sound Web Solutions are always happy to chat. Whether in Anchorage or Valdez, Alaska or Hawaii, or even Brazil, we’re available!
Have a great day,
Heidi
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