How To Monitor Your Web Traffic
Just having a website is not enough. You must track visitors to your site and keep track of what they do once they arrive if you want to maximize your investment. This will assist you in increasing traffic and conversions.
“Most firms’ websites fail to perform because they ignore their objectives when creating a web strategy or don’t measure how well their online marketing performs against their targets,” reveals Peter Hawtin, founder of web marketing agency Brand New Way. “You need to monitor if your site is meeting your objectives by measuring key performance indicators.”
Get started with web analytics
Google Analytics is one of the most widely used web analytics tools. It is well-liked because it is cost-free and includes a wide range of functions.
“There are more advanced, paid-for tools available, but for most small firms the free tools are sufficient,” advises Hawtin.
User tracking is standardized across most packages. A tracking code must be included to each page of your website. This makes it possible for your analytics program to track users as they navigate your website.
You can immediately add your tracking code using several website creations tools. If not, an IT provider or web developer may be able to help.
What to track with web analytics
Analytics may be used to measure a wide range of important topics.
The amount of website visitors is typically the first factor most firms consider. Most analytics software displays two distinct statistics:
- Total visitors (also called sessions). This figure counts each visit to your site, even if the same person has returned more than once.
- Unique visitors (also called users). This figure filters out repeat visits, so each person is only counted once.
The number of page views is another often used metric. This keeps track of how many distinct web pages visitors have viewed. Additionally, you ought to evaluate which pages are popular and why. Can you use what is effective for other pages to enhance the performance of other pages?
Additionally, you should be able to find out from your analytics package where in the world your visitors are coming from, how they found you (organic, direct, or search), and what devices they are using. These kinds of insights can show you potential new markets (for instance, if you are getting a lot of traffic from a certain country) or web development work you might need (for instance, if your site is not mobile-friendly and you are getting a lot of mobile traffic).
Where are your visitors coming from?
You can identify which online marketing initiatives are most successful by knowing how visitors found your site.
Links on other websites are one method that websites get traffic. These are known as “referrers,” and the information they provide is incredibly valuable. Your referrers will let you know when a review about your company that links to your website has been posted, for example.
Search engines are a further source of website visitors. You should be aware of the search terms people use to locate your website as well as how search engines rank your company and its rivals.
Because visitors may be coming from keywords and search engines that you’re not aware of, web statistics related to search can frequently be illuminating.
Analytics can be used to specifically track traffic from marketing campaigns or advertisements that you are conducting. You should have a goal in mind and evaluate your campaign to see how well it achieves that goal.
“Small businesses often don’t have the resources to do all types of online marketing, so they need to see where it’s most worthwhile, and focus their efforts there,” explains Hawtin.
Web analytics can pinpoint a visitor’s location in addition to letting you know the channels they utilized to discover you. If you want to market to customers in a certain location, this may be helpful.
Analytics are able to tell you where a visitor has come from, but they do not gather any personal data, making it impossible to identify them. However, the majority do install little files known as cookies on users’ computers, therefore you might be required to inform visitors in accordance with EU cookie regulations.
Monitor how visitors use your site
How users interact with your website says a lot about its navigation and content. You can develop the site and increase conversion rates by analyzing this.
“Find out what proportion of people coming to your website actually do what you want them to do,” says Hawtin. Your objective will usually be to persuade visitors to complete a key action – known as an ‘Event’ or ‘Goal’. For instance:
- sharing or ‘Liking’ a post on social media
- contacting you via an online form
- signing up to your e-newsletter
- making a purchase
You could, for instance, set up a goal that tracks when someone makes a purchase and how much money they spend.
You may keep track of visitors who drop off. You can use this to find issues with your online order procedure. If conversion rates are low, you can analyze each step of the ordering process to see how you can make it more user-friendly.
“You’ll obtain a greater conversion rate by streamlining an online form or providing a faster payment gateway, because customers are more inclined to complete the process,” argues Hawtin.
It’s possible that some elements of your website are ineffective. If your website is content driven, you should continually update or improve it.
The important thing is to ensure that you do take some sort of action based on the data you find.
“There’s no point using analytics if you’re not going to do anything with them,” Hawtin concludes. “But if you can make a 1% or 2% improvement to your results each quarter, based on what it’s telling you, it’s a worthwhile exercise.”
Call MCDA CCG, Inc today for any questions about improving Web Traffic
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