Time and again we have learned that the most assured way of succeeding in the marketing world is by understanding the customers. If that is the case, then you will need to devise ways to stay ahead of the competition and understand the changing trends among the customers in time. Now, this can be a little tricky without the right tools. I mean it is almost impossible to stay ahead of the competition and understand the customers all at the same time. A slight delay can cost you either your position in the market or your customers. This is the point where marketers turn towards the digital side of the realm and start relying on the world of Web Analytics. Though marketers are aware of this tool, many times people just use it blindly, as it is becoming a part of marketing. Nowadays, when you walk in as a marketing employee, may be responsible for the data analytics department, you will notice that you will be required to draw up reports and dashboards for companies. You may not even know why you are drawing up such information. This is just one scenario; on the other hand, there are cases where the company that requested for such reports itself is not sure of how to use the information.
So are you one of those people who ever stopped and wondered, “Why am I using this tool? Is it really that helpful?” I am guessing that it is because you had such questions that you are here now reading this article. Doesn’t matter if you are a small business owner or an employee at an MNC, this blog post will help you get a little insight into exactly why and how web analytics is important. The article has been structured in the following manner:
- What is Web Analytics?
- Why is Web Analytics important for any type of business?
- How can web analytics help the business?
What is Web Analytics?
In simple words, web analytics is the measurement of data in order to analyze and report the behavior of users across various web pages. As mentioned earlier, to succeed in the marketing world, you need to start by understanding the customers. Every company, small business or large, startsits operations by first setting up a website, followed by various social media accounts. The main reason for this is the fact that customers nowadays prefer taking informed decisions and do tend to rely on the web for all the answers.
Since digital marketing and other online marketing platforms and activities are now ruling the customer’s behavior patterns, this is the best way to understand your target or potential users. Keeping this in mind, some of the metrics that you will be exposed to in any web analytics tools, such as Google Analytics; include session duration, page views, and sources. These sources will help you understand how these users landed on your page, which is again very useful information.
These metrics and the detailed dashboards are what helps companies in taking accurate decisions regarding the improvement of their website. After all, with the help of the analysis drawn, companies, especially small businesses, devise a benchmarking system that highlights key performance indicators. This in effect translates into the objectives that are in line with their overall business goals. This takes us further down to understand the benefits associated with using web analytics tools like Google Analytics.
Why is Web Analytics important for any type of business?
The Internet is filled with quotes for any topic; however, there is one such quote any data analyst will connect to. This quote states, “Whatever is worth doing, is worth measuring” This holds very true when using web analytics because tools like Google Analytics gives deep insights that will help you optimize the website in ways that will enhance customer experience. The importance of using such tools is as follows:
Understand your customers:
As I mentioned earlier, it does not matter whether you are a large business owner or a small business owner, such insights will be useful to both types of businesses. The reason I emphasize on small businesses is since they are new to the market; they need such information to help grow in the business vertical. When you are starting out, you need to make sure that none of your business decisions will have a negative impact on your growing customer base. The key is to enhance customer experience, and to make this possible, the use of web analytics tools like Google Analytics are important.
You need to know who and what type of customers are visiting your website. You need to understand their demographics (age, gender, location, etc.). You also need to understand their level of technology and the devices they are using to access your website and other accounts. For instance, if they are using mobile devices more than desktop, you will have to optimize your website in order to ensure good quality appearance across mobile devices. Google Analytics is deemed as one of the most popularly and commonly used web analytics tools, and the reports generated on Google Analytics have been depicted below:
Demographics Report:
Interests Report:
Technology and Mobile Report:
Such reports are very valuable, as it helps small businesses understand the improvements they need to make in order to target the audiences accurately and enhance user experience. With web analytics tools like Google Analytics, retrieving such details reports would be an impossibly laborious task.
Identify the best content/page:
Another benefit gained from using Google analytics, or any other web analytics for that matter is the access to information regarding which content on the respective website gets the most number of visits. It also gives you information regarding the average duration on that page, the bounce rate for various pages and so on. It is of paramount significance to get information regarding this metric because it helps you understand what the viewers like reading and analyze the missing elements on other pages. You are in a better position to take a decision to make changes to the webpages, as you have a better insight into what customers prefer.
The image depicts the report of top page views on Google Analytics. As you can see, it provides details on various metrics that can help in understanding the performance of your website. You can either more call to action buttonsor if you are an e-commerce business you can provide purchase links or anything that you deem as necessary to improve your website. The ultimate benefit from this report is that you will be able to optimize your site to increase engagement.
Improves website’s SEO:
We all know that search engine optimization (SEO) is a very critical element for the growth of a business. Small businesses, since they are just starting off, need to use this technique in order to gain authenticity across search engine platforms. The organic traffic a business receives is a direct indication of the number of leads and conversions it generates. By being able to get insights into visitors’ demographics, you are in a better position to create targeted content that appeals to the audience. If you are a small business owner, and if you are wondering how does Google Analytics or other web analytics tools help improve your website’s SEO, then let me tell you that there is a report for that too. Google Analytics is one of the most efficient web analytics tools that help you connect Google Search Console with the Google Analytics tool. This, thus, helps you track and identify the search queries that are generating maximum traffic for your site.
This is the display of the report on Google Analytics, which highlights the clicks, the number of impressions, average click-through rate (CTR) and the position of the search query term. Small businesses can use this report to their advantage as it helps them compare their existing content with another piece of content that interests the viewers. Doing this will help in optimizing the content accordingly.
Track referrals:
Web analytics enables you to track the referral traffic your website receives. It is an essential method for small businesses and large MNC’s to generate referral traffic and devise strategies to gain more referrals to their websites. If your site is already generating strong traffic from various search engines, it is a pure indication of successful SEO activity. If you find ways to improve it, it will help you drive increased traffic to your website.
This report gives you an insight into your current website performance and can be used to devise action plans to enhance the website.
Outbound links:
Referral traffic is not all that matters, especially if you are a small business who is trying to grow. Outbound links are also very crucial to a website and this is why web analytics tools aim to help you with this aspect as well. Using Google Analytics, you gain access to view the “top links” clicked on your website that leads to the landing on another page. This way you can reach out to other websites and approach them with partnership offers/deals.
This is the most commonly used technique adopted by businesses to collaborate with related businesses. This can also be adopted by small businesses to mark their presence in the niche as well as increase their domain authenticity.
E-commerce metrics:
As I mentioned in the beginning, you can be a business that sells physical products, or a service-oriented business that offers digital marketing services (or known as online marketing or web marketing) or you could even be an e-commerce business platform. The benefits of web analytics tools are not restricted to any one type of business but are useful to everyone. Google Analytics, for instance, displays the required e-commerce metrics.
The above image depicts the e-commerce metrics view on Google Analytics. It delivers metrics related to top products, revenues, average order value and so on. Understanding these metrics will help you adopt the required strategies that will help you improve the website, yet again. And since your e-commerce website is an income generator, these metrics can be very useful.
These six pointers are the main benefits any business can enjoy from the simple use of any web analytics tools, like Google Analytics. The information derived from the myriad of reports available on Google Analytics can be used by small business owners to grow rapidly within their vertical. This brings us to the final section in this blog, that is how does web analytics help a business grow.
How can web analytics help the business?
From the above-mentioned benefits itself, it is evident that web analytics can help a business grow rapidly. But if you are still wondering how then the following two pointers will help overcome this confusion.
- Web analytics tools help make better decisions. If you are a small business, there is honestly no room to make mistakes and hurt the existing customer base. Therefore, using tools like Google Analytics will help you avoid such errors that might have a negative impact on the company.
- With the help of the various metrics that are available in these tools, it is easier to identify what exactly is going wrong in the website. There are various action steps you can take to improve your website, but without a clear indication of what is wrong, it becomes difficult to finalize an action plan.
There are many ways in which web analytics can help your business grow, but the main reason would definitely be the ability to make informed and accurate decisions with the help of accurate reports.
Tools like Google analytics definitely will have a major role to play in the overall improvement of your business’s performance. Online digital media are growing in importance among customers’ and understanding the platforms and putting your best foot forward is very essential to aid long-term growth. Therefore, businesses that use such web analytics tools stand a better chance to attract users and grow in the industry.
