Any web designer can build you a “pretty” website. But is your website really achieving its objectives: Increasing traffic? Converting visitors into customers? Reaching specific target audiences? Only a web professional can help you here. Here are a few pointers to guide you.
Today, web designing is part art and part science. Creating great layouts and content is the artistic part – required in order to give yourself a web presence in the first place. Most good website developers provide these services, at a high quality, to their clients.
However, once you have a great website, you then need to apply some science in order to ensure your website continues to stay relevant and continues to deliver on its promises of more sales, greater website visitor traffic and improved search engine rankings when new potential customers go to search for you. And here’s where professional web expertise is required to use tools like Google Analytics - because not every web designer can help you here.
Harnessing The Power Of Google Analytics
Wikipedia defines Google Analytics as follows: “Google Analytics is a freemium web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic…”.
In reality though, the tool does much more than that. But to truly unlock its power, you need someone that knows something about Javascript tracking code, web page tags, and perhaps even “stuff” like Python, Ruby and PHP.
So what can Google Analytics really do for your website? The answer: If properly integrated into your websites’ design, it can give you a lot of insight about your website visitors, which you can then use to your advantage.
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1. Know Who They Are: For this, your web design must include the appropriate javascript code in each of your web pages to 'inform' your Google Analytics profile account about everything you need to know about who is visiting your website. The tool can then harvest this info' so that you can tailor appropriate strategies – such as offering products or services for that specific type of visitor – to entice visitors to spend money at your site.
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2. Know Where They Come From: A professionally built website, that supports Google Analytics, can tell you where – which city or country – your visitors come from. Knowing this information can help you leverage region or country specific marketing opportunities to help you convert casual visitors into paying customers. If you website starts to get more and more non-English speaking visitors you should have the pages translated or use Google Translate.
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3. Know What They Do On Your Website: If your web designer knows his/her stuff, they can use Google Analytics to tell you exactly which pages are the most popular on your site, and how long visitors spend there once they land on that page. This can tell you what pages to focus on. 90% of your sales on the website will come from 10% of the products. If you are receiving a lot of traffic on a particular page where you recently announced a new promotion on your site; but you are not getting enough sales, you can use that information to “tweak” or “sweeten” the offer so more people will take you up on that promotion. With analytics, you'll have the information and then you can work with your web design company to take advantage of it.
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4. Know How They Got There: A really important feature of Google Analytics is its ability to tell website owners how visitors are getting to their site. Some websites will support this feature, and some won't, but you could collect vital analytical information about visitors browsing your site using mobile devices; or you might learn which social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.) are generating more hits to your website.
This information can then be strategically used to your advantage. For instance, make your website more mobile friendly, or invest more in proximity advertising (where mobile users get automated alerts from your website). You might even choose to spend less on Facebook advertising (because fewer visitors come from there), and increase spending on Twitter or YouTube marketing campaigns. Again, once you have the facts in front of you and can decide what to do about it.
Making Data Count
Your web designing strategy will determine whether you can use Google Analytics to your benefit, or whether you simply remain a web presence that lets its data analytics potential go untapped.
Your website is a virtual data collection receptacle, but whether or not you use it as such is entirely up to you. Merely getting a web site up and running will certainly give you a web presence – but there is so much more it could be doing for you. Converting your website into a data collection and analysing machine can help you turbo-charge you’re marketing and sales efforts.
Consulting with the right professionals can unleash the power of data that lies hidden within your website. All you need to make that data count is the right web designer, and your website could start generating more sales for you – and you don't have to do any extra work for it. If you have any questions about getting your website to track your website visitors, give us a call or email - we'd be glad to advise you on setting that up.
