Web analytics programs are tools to gather and interpret raw usage data from visitors on your site.  Tracking these metrics will help you find where your traffic comes from, where they go on your site, where they leave, how long they stay and where they go after leaving your site.  Knowing how your site is being used is crucial to determining what it is doing well and what needs to be refined to make it more effective.

Don’t fly blind.  Analytics will keep you on track.

With the technical aspects aside, the core idea behind website analytics, is - in a word -  accountability.  Web analytics provides you with the data to interpret your website traffic and be able to understand how your website is used, and how it is performing with your visitors.  You need to know more about who goes on your website to find where the holes in your online marketing campaign are, which will help you know what to fix.  Assuming you already know who is on your site and what they are interested in without data to back it up will make you overlook important things to streamline your site.

Understanding how to interpret data, knowing which metrics to look for will help you make real-time, informed decisions regarding your website.  The web is a very fluid and dynamic environment and no website, even a newly designed one, is guaranteed to perform well without regular maintenance and assessment.

Understand limitations to draw more accurate conclusions.

When reading your analytics reports, it is very important to note that all analytics programs interpret data based on certain assumptions.  For example, something you might think is an obvious key metric, such as the number of unique visitors, is not an exact count.  The program will not distinguish between search engine spiders crawling your site, proxy servers, unique human visitors or several people visiting the site off the same LAN.  The program also assumes how long a ‘visit’ is, which can vary.

This is not to say that these numbers are inaccurate or misleading, or even that these assumptions are either right or wrong - they are just that: assumptions.  It is the nature of the beast.  Furthermore, how you interpret your user data should be taken at a case by case basis, and certain patterns of use cannot be broadly summarized as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.   This does not mean you should discount your unique visitors, time spent per site and average page-views per user data; it is important to understand the limitations in analytics programs will help you draw better conclusions from their reports.

Bounce Rate: The most important metric.

Let me introduce you to your most important metric: the ‘bounce rate’.   Think of the bounce rate the measure of your user’s assessment of your relevance.  This wonderful metric shows you how many of your visitors deemed your site to be irrelevant and immediately left.  More specifically, it can be applied to help you isolate where your good traffic and bad traffic is coming from.  An average bounce rate should be between 40% to 60% - the lower the better.  Bear in mind, you cannot convince everyone who makes it to your site to stay, so don’t sweat it if it isn’t down in the single digits.

Where this metric becomes especially powerful as a diagnostic tool is when you check the bounce rate on your entry pages.  It is important to remember that a lot of visitors will get to your site through pages other than your home page (which underscores the necessity of excellent and intuitive navigation on every page of your site, but I digress).  Seeing what traffic you get from where on which pages and being able to assess the percentage of your visitors who found your site relevant will go a long way to helping you in your landing page optimization and assessing which markets yield interested visitors.

The bounce rate should also be applied to Google Adwords campaigns.  You can track the bounce rates of visitors that get to your sites from various keywords in order to see which ones are giving you your best traffic and which ones are generating bad leads and wasting your money.  This will help you assess if you are bidding on the right or wrong keywords.  Conversely, you may also find, like one of my clients did, that she was getting lots of traffic from a keyword she had not anticipated and based on this information, she increased her product offerings for that keyword.

Analytics affects usability.

It is easy to assume certain things about your visitors, but without solid data, this can cause countless problems with your site’s usability.  For example, you cannot necessarily assume all your visitors are on broadband connections with high resolution monitors (especially if you are a B2C company), but this can easily not be the case.  How would you know?  Using a program like Google analytics will track helpful metrics such as geographic locations of your traffic (via revers IP lookup), the browsers your visitors use, their screen resolution, their connection speed and much more.  These will help you make sure your site is designed and optimized for your viewers.

Understanding how people use your website is paramount to the success of your online marketing campaign.  I would recommend glancing over your statistics every week or so to check for anomalies.  Once a month, dig deep into your analytics data to get a list of improvements for the next month and to assess the progress on last month’s list.  The benefit of accountability on your site and online marketing campaign only comes from interpreting and applying the data.

Leave a comment if this was helpful or if you want to know a little more about how to use your analytics data.  I’m here to help!

I can’t tell you how many stories I have heard about people getting burned or ripped off by their web designer. Most business owners don’t know what they don’t know about web marketing and end up handing a crucial part of their company’s marketing campaign over to a potentially harmful third party. How do you navigate the online minefield? Having worked with many companies through this process, here are some insider tips.

Only work with a design firm that understands marketing.

This is the most valuable piece of wisdom I can give you, and will save you months of time and thousands of dollars if you take it to heart. A lady I met with recently dropped $8,000 on a website that had copious marketing flaws; this expensive mistake did nothing of what it needed to for converting web traffic to closed sales. There is no way around it: your website is marketing your company and you should only work with a designer who understands how to give you a crucial part of your marketing campaign - not just a website. Find out going in how much your web designer knows about marketing principals, and if they keep up with the research on the ever evolving online marketplace. Their understanding and skill in this area determines if they can give you the product worth paying for.

Most design firms fall into one of two categories: code monkeys or photoshop gurus. They either know the markup or graphics well; a few even know both. Rarely do they employ marketer’s skills like information architecture or web usability research. These are CRUCIAL for your website even being worth the price of a cup of coffee. These marketer’s skills will influence countless design and layout decisions as well as provide the foundation for the user experience on your site.

Be forewarned, it will cost more to have a marketing savvy site developed, but it should pay for itself over time. You are investing in your marketing infrastructure, not shelling out money on a liability if you choose your designer well. Understanding web development as an investment in your company, and working with a web developer who knows how to build this is crucial and worth every penny.

Don’t go with the cheapest option just because its cheaper.

Going with the bargain-basement designer is like buying the cheapest parachute you can find. Your web marketing is essential to a successful business, and cutting corners on your designer can have disastrous consequences. If you go with the bargan options, dont expect them to work well. If they are cheap, most likely their product and customer care is too.

Beware cheap or free options. Paying for quality is worth it.

Cheap or free alternatives will rarely pan out how you want them to. To get something done right, pay someone well to make it happen. A client of mine specifically wanted to work with me, knowing she had a free alternative, because I would be financially incented to do a good job on time and on budget. She had power in the design process because she was the one writing the checks. Favors are hardly enforceable and quality will suffer unless someone is being compensated fairly. Cheaper alternatives will not focus on client satisfaction and quality because they aren’t being paid enough to care.

Get clear outlines of deliverables and price.

Some designers lowball the project to get you on board and then surprise you with extra costs during the development. These hidden costs often end up making the project cost as much or more than their competition for an inferior product. Truth in advertising should apply to proposals. To protect yourself, get a contract in writing that outlines the deliverables on your end and theirs with clear costs and timeframes for the line items on the project. Clearly defining what you are getting and what it costs up front should be standard practice for your designer if they are worth hiring. Paying more for up front for this clarity will often save you money in the course of the project.

Coming soon…Part 2: 3 crucial questions to ask your designer before hiring them.

It is common knowledge that, to be taken seriously in business, you must have a website. However, the evolution of the online medium now dictates that having a website focused on lead generation or conversion is necessary for staying in business. Research shows that your customers are checking your website, and what they see and experience there influences how they perceive your business and ultimately, whether or not they buy from you. Even your ‘brochure’ website must do more than merely inform; it should be converting online traffic to leads.

Your website is a crucial step in the buying process.

According to an article published by the Online Publisher’s Association:

The Internet plays a vital role in the purchase decision process for virtually all product and service categories, regardless of whether the purchase transaction happens on a website, over the telephone or in a store or other physical location. 

The significance of this research is that it defines your website as a crucial step in the buying process. We can safely assume that no matter what industry you are in, regardless of where the final sale is transacted, your visitors are evaluating your website. Given that, their impression of your company from your website can make or break the sale.

The web is of increasing marketing importance.

The report goes on further to explain their findings regarding consumer impressions and which mediums most influenced consumer’s decisions to buy. Tracking since 2002, the data have consistently shown an increasing influence of a company’s website in the rate of sales conversion.

Asked which touchpoints most influenced their purchase decision, respondents cited websites collectively (official company sites plus third-party retailer and other sites) as more important than TV advertisements in seven out of 10 product/service categories. 

Traditional media such as TV and print have been declining in significance while online and other non-traditional media such as websites and mobile marketing have been increasing in significance with consumers. This is a trend that is not likely to change any time soon. Get used to the web being an essential part of your company’s marketing campaign.

What is your website saying about your business?

Is the information that your visitors are looking for easy to find? Do you even know what information your visitors are looking for? Is your website structure simple and intuitive, while simultaneously being informative and comprehensive? Is the visual appeal of your website attractive to the caliber of clients you are looking to work with?

 As vain as it is, an aesthetically unappealing website denotes low quality service; this is an obvious extension of the ‘dress for success’ philosophy. More importantly than how the site looks, is how it functions. An intuitively structured, well organized website crafted to communicate your company’s unique selling proposition is necessary for closing the sale. A frustrating user experience will scare off customers because it will predict in their minds a similar experience when working with you. 

Conversely, as much as a bad site can hurt you, a well designed and organized website can help your business. A positive online impression that is consistent with your brand will be that essential step in closing the sale. Managing the perceptions of your customers online is no longer inconsequential to your company’s perception as a whole. Given the influence of the internet, make sure that your company’s online presence influences your customers to buy from you rather than your competitors. 

Cited reseach: The Internet’s Role in the ModernPurchase Process