In our first analytics journal entry, we talked about setting clear goals for your business’ website. These could include:
- Increasing purchases through your website’s marketplace
- Developing new leads through newsletter opt-in programs
- Growing customer engagement through online participation such as blog comments
Trying to figure out how analytics translate into business goals might make you scratch your head. They definitely confuse Mia, our four legged office mascot. But if you know how to interpret them, analytics give you vital insight into where you stand and how you can reach your goals.
Website analytics may seem like a completely different language. That’s okay. Interpreting them does not require you to be a bilingual mastermind. These are two stats to which we like to pay close attention that can help you maximize your results:
Exit Page
If you are looking at your Exit Page analytics, good job. What’s an exit page? Exit pages are the point where your visitors head to another site from yours. If your visitors are coming and leaving without opting-in to your desired goal, there is still more work to do.
Take a close look at your top Exit Page. why do you think people are leaving from it? Is it messy and hard to follow? Does it provide a clear call-to-action? Initially, make small changes to your site’s leading Exit Page such as changing the color of your call-to-action button. Or, try swapping out your graphics.
Pay close attention to how your numbers change. This data will help you get to know your unique audience so you can tailor your presence to them.
Traffic Sources
How are your prospects discovering your business? Traffic Sources show you from where your Visitors and Unique Visitors are coming. It also tells you where your prospects are spending their time. Is most of your traffic coming from Social Media outlets such as Facebook or Pinterest? Are you gaining attention from direct searches? Is an external site linking to yours and directing traffic to you?
Knowing where your prospects are entering your site can help you determine where you should be spending your time. If your visitors are coming mainly from Twitter and hardly ever from LinkedIn, spending massive amounts of time publishing status updates on LinkedIn won’t do much good.
Instead, place the majority of your attention on the sources which currently refer traffic to your site.
Curious about other specific analytics data and how it can be interpreted to help your business? Send us a tweet at @RWLDesign. We’d love to answer it.
