Web analytics is not just a tool for measuring web traffic.
Off-site web analytics refers to the measurement of a website’s potential audience (opportunity), share of voice (visibility), and buzz (comments) that is happening on the internet as a whole. On-site web analytics measures a visitor’s behavior once on your website. This includes its drivers and conversions.
Taken together, web anlaytics provides a complete picture of your audience and their attitudes and behaviors toward your brand. Web analytics is the most valuable, useful, cost-effective and timely resource a business has to answers key strategy questions.
Google Analytics is the most widely used web analytics software. Google Webmaster Tools shows traffic for each keyword separately; it gives more information about website performance. There is even a Google Analytics Academy to learn all about how to use web analytics done online on the participant’s schedule. They’re all free to use so there’s no reason a company shouldn’t dedicate some time and attention to examining web analytics.
If you need more convincing, here are 37 key strategy questions web analytics answers.
WHO ARE OUR CUSTOMERS?
- Who do we attract?
- Who do we want to attract?
- Who is visiting for the first time?
- Who is returning for more visits?
- What cities or countries are most people visiting from?
- What search keywords are sending us traffic?
- What percent of traffic comes from mobile devices?
- Who are our most valuable segments?
- Who is worth doing marketing efforts to based on their business potential?
- Are we doing better or worse?
WHAT ARE THEIR BEHAVIORS TOWARD OUR BRAND?
- What actions do people take?
- Are they taking the actions we want?
- How do people find us?
- How do people travel through the site?
- What sort of experience do we create for our users?
- What percent of users view at least 3 pages per visit?
- What percent of users remain on site for at least 3 minutes?
- Where do our most active visitors come from?
- Where do visitors click?
- Where are our most valuable users coming from?
- Who shares our content?
- What content works best?
- What percent of users comment on content?
- Who recommends us to a friend?
- What social networks and social media metrics are worth tracking?
- What do they buy from us?
HOW DO FIND MORE PEOPLE LIKE THEM?
- How do we find more people like the ones who are most valuable customers?
- How long does it take for someone to decide to do business with us?
- How do we know if our site is doing well relative to competitors?
- How do we know if our marketing efforts are working?
- How has advertising worked?
- Was advertising worth it?
- How can we identify the ideal marketing mix?
- How do analytics help us understand how the business can make the most revenue and profits?
- What key metrics should be used for Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- What is the best way to measure ROI?
Do the answers to these questions matter to your business? Do they convince you to dedicate time and attention to web analytics? Does your company need to learn how to use web analytics better?
