4 ways clever business owners watch their websites’ visitors

Google Analytics is the ever-present Personal Investigator for your website:

• Secretly watching who’s watching you!
• Peering through the looking glass of the web.
• Recording what people see, where they go and how often.
• Watching users’ behaviour, so you can manipulate their path to where YOU want them to go.

What’s more, many websites already have it set up (if not, it’s a cinch to do), so why not use it: unlock the data that is already there and understand where to focus your resources – boosting your business to greater strengths.

Are you brave enough to look?

This spookily clever software enables you to creek open the back door of your website, take a peek inside, and view for yourself what’s really going on.

But what happens if you find that your landing pages are repelling your customers? Or if your pricing is scaring your users away?

What would you do about it?

Dare you see where your audience is going?

Dare you see your flaws and vulnerabilities enough to change them and gain better insights into how you can make things better?

If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.

– H. James Harrington

“But my website is amazing”

Maybe your website is devilishly amazing; your product or services are thrilling to eye popping proportions, your marketing strategies are more magical than a wizards wand and your imagery and content is on point.

But can you honestly say you’re getting the sales or sign-ups you want or need?

You’ll be surprised by how simple the answer to this conundrum could be. Getting to that place however requires a bit of digging – digging down into your data.

In god we trust, all others bring data

-W. Edwards Deming

The crystal ball that is Google Analytics will point you towards the areas you need to explore further. In particular, this stalker-like software will allow you to discover:

1. How did users get to your site?

How many of your users are are brand spanking new customers, and which ones are returning?

Google analytics will allow you to see how many people are responding to your marketing efforts – which of your activities are driving visitors and which are just a waste of time. Even better, it will tell you which marketing channels are actually delivering the real paying customers – are all those Facebook visitors just browsers? Letting you focus on the work that’s actually making you money.

It will also tell you what time your customers generally come to your site. This could help you assess when you should focus on putting out your social media marketing advert, when to put offers out, or just make sure that you’ve got someone keeping an eye on customer service enquiries at this time.

2. What are users doing on your site?

Follow your customers like a bloody thirsty zombie. Find out what visitors to your site are doing – what pages they’re looking at and what buttons they’re clicking. Google Analytics allows you to see where they went, and how long they spent there, where they went on to, and when they left.

Are your customers entering your site looking for something specific and then being drawn to something else? Is there some sort of confusion evident? Are your users travelling through your site in the manner you actually want them to?

3. How well is your site working?

Track the number of people that achieve your goals. Create easy to read funnels that show you how users progress through your website, making it simple to figure out what’s working – and what isn’t.

Shine a flashlight on your customers individual behaviour, finding out how much they spent, what they bought, how long it took for them to complete their purchase/sign up – and see how changes you make to your website affect people’s behaviour. Maybe a free postage and packing promotion will fundamentally transform your business’ dynamics.

4. What made your users leave?

Just like a big round rubber ball, sometimes users bounce right off your site at the first page they see. A high bounce rate is scary! But, armed with knowing the parts of your site that need fixing, things could turn around fast. Weave a spiders web that lures users in and makes sure they stick.

Use Google Analytics to spot problem pages – those with high bounce rates, or that block progress through the site and help understand what the issue could be.

 

If you’ve got a website and aren’t using Google Analytics, you’re definitely missing a trick.

Find out how you can use this free software to connect to your customers, and how to interpret the data. Get in touch right now, or you could join our Google Analytics training course for only £25 (usually £90).

No Tricks. Just Treats! Spookily great websites and consultation by Curious.