Traffic analysis is a key ingredient in online marketing success. The numbers, charts and graphs provided by your favorite web statistics software are invaluable.
But it's not until you begin to interpret those statistics as part of a larger picture that you'll receive the full value of your web analytics software.
A software package can only return so many lines of data. And most of them do a good job at providing the most important ones. But your real insights will be found at the intersection of two, three, or even more of these statistics.
It's up to you to interpret what you see and turn it into useful information, rather than staring blankly at the numbers and recognizing a trend. When you see a trend you like or don't like, your natural tendency is to try to emphasize the conditions that caused the positive trends and eliminate the conditions that led to negative trends. But how?
By digging. Let's say your visits are down. Now, you have to ask yourself why? Perhaps, upon further investigation, you see that the downturn in traffic is primarily coming from a loss of repeat visitors. Dig a little further, and you find out that visitors on dial-up stopped returning a few weeks ago. Now, think about what could have changed over the past few weeks. Did you switch servers? Add any large images or problematic remote
javascript code such as Google Analytics?
Now your digging into the statistics has brought you outside the numbers and into the reality of your site and the way you run it. Get into the mind of your typical visitor and see what they see. Dig around for other statistics that may provide a clue as to why you're getting the results that you are. Chances are, when you stop and think, the answer will come from your own mind, not one of a hundred pretty charts or bar graphs on your web
analytics software.
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Using Web analytics just to churn out reports for management is like driving a Porsche in bumper-to-bumper traffic. You're not putting the pedal to the metal and using it for all it's worth. If you want to start improving your marketing campaigns, I encourage you to do more than just compile data on the number of visitors and conversions. Instead, think about where those visitors came from, what they actually did on your site and why they did it.
Unless you've been living under the proverbial rock, you're already aware that businesses throughout the United States are facing some tough economic times. Some businesses won't make it through. Other businesses will take a hit but will be able to keep going. So what's the key to helping your business rally through these trying times? Keeping a calm mindset, and figuring out ways to do more with less.
Your Web-analytics solution is likely providing copious detail about customer and prospect behavior, such as number of unique visitors, site-navigation patterns and top entry pages. But are you using it to shed light on how well email-marketing campaigns are performing? For example, do you know how many email visitors reached the cart and then left before completing the purchase? How long email visitors spent on each page? Which pages caused most of them to bail? Which email campaigns have higher conversion rates - even though their open and click-through rates are similar?
Finding success in online marketing really comes down to traffic, and a popular traffic tracking service called Alexa can help you a lot. So what is your website traffic ranking? Alexa can give you a pretty good idea. These ranking are published, and ranked according to popularity. When you get into the lower numbers, the value of a website can be in direct correlation with the Alexa ranking.
Checking bounce rates is similar to x-raying your website. You can learn quite a lot about how healthy your site is and the results can point you to the areas where you need to make improvements. Remember, you are likely to have 5 seconds or less to grab a new visitor's imagination. Are you confident your site is up to the challenge?
Not tracking is like driving blind - you can crash any time because you can't see where you're going. Tracking traffic helps you to know your sources and from there, you'll know how to maximize on them.
