6 Actions to Take Based On Your Website Analytics

Many business owners either feel intimidated by website analytics or they look at the analytics and don’t know what actions to take based on the data.  It’s unfortunate because there are some really concrete actions that you can take based on the data. Below are 6 types of data that you can analyze and more importantly, what you can do based on the analysis.

Unpaid Keywords – Which keywords are people using to find you?

• How to do the analysis: Take a look at the keywords that people are using to find you and just start by analyzing them subjectively.  Are they mostly the name of your business?  Are the phrases that aren’t your business name searches that could be conducted by potential customers?
• Actions to take based on the results: If you’re receiving searches primarily for your business name then this means you may want to do some search engine optimization to start getting found by people who haven’t already heard of you.  If the phrases that people use to find you aren’t a good fit for what you do then you should put together a good target keyword list and then do some search engine optimization on your website content.

Bounce Rate – Are people engaging with your website?

• How to do the analysis: The bounce rate of a website is defined as the % of visitors who leave your site without ever visiting a second page.  It’s a strong indication of how well you are engaging your website visitors.  The global average for websites is just under 50%.
• Actions to take based on the results: If your website bounce rate is around 50% you don’t have anything to worry about.  If your bounce rate is significantly above 50% this is a strong indication that you need to change the site to engage with visitors better.  If you are having a problem here you might want to read our post on tips to reduce your website bounce rate.

Most Popular Pages – Where are people going on your website?

• How to do the analysis: Take a look at your web visit data to see what your top couple pages are in terms of visits.  Your home page will almost always be in the top spot, but what are the other 1 or 2 most popular pages?
• Actions to take based on the results: Many people don’t really think about the most popular pages after the home page and as a result the other most popular pages are not as optimized as they could be.  Make sure you have a good Call To Action on the other popular pages to maximize your chances of converting a visitor into a lead.

Visit Sources – Where are your website visitors coming from?

• How to do the analysis: How do people find your site?  The three most common sources are direct, referral, and search.  Take a look at how many visitors you get from each source.  Direct visitors are people who found your website by typing your website address directly into their browser.  These are people who heard about you and decided to learn more by investigating your website.  Referral visitors are people who come to your website by clicking on a link to you from another website (excluding search websites like Google).  Search visitors are people who found you by doing a search in Google or other search engines.
• Actions to take based on the results:  If your referral traffic is low, then you’re probably missing an opportunity to get people to link to you.  Reach out to people you have business relationships with to get them to link to you or try to generate a little publicity for yourself.  If your search traffic is low then you may be missing an opportunity to get found in the search results by doing some search engine optimization.  As far as direct traffic goes, most businesses have some kind of base of direct traffic.  If you don’t it may be because your website address is too long, too hard to spell, or you may just not be getting your brand name out in a consistent fashion (some businesses confuse customers by using multiple names).

Visit Count – Are you generating enough visits to have leads?

• How to do the analysis:  How many visits does your website receive over a given time frame?  How many leads did you get from your website over that time frame?  To do this type of analysis you need to have a tracked phone line on your website and replace any publicly visible email addresses with contact forms (otherwise you won’t know for sure if your website generated the leads).  The idea here is to figure out if your website is optimized well enough to generate leads.
• Actions to take based on the results:  Unfortunately there is no hard and fast rule for the percentage of website visitors that should convert to leads.  There are simply too many variables.  That said, if you have 100’s of visitors, you might have some leads.  If you have 1000’s of visitors you probably should have some leads, and if you have 10,000’s of visitors you should almost definitely have some leads.  If you’re concerned that you may not be generating enough leads you should figure out if you have the right type of website.

Visitor Graph Analysis – How is it trending?

• How to do the analysis:  Take a look at a long timeframe (ideally 1 year or more) of the number of visitors that your website receives.  Is traffic flat, down, or trending up?
• Actions to take based on the results:  If your traffic is trending up that is a great sign.  If your website traffic is flat you are either not doing enough marketing to have an effect, or the marketing that you are doing is potentially not effective.  If the trend is downward you may be suffering from some competitors working more aggressively on their marketing then you.  If you need help answering these types of broader marketing questions contact ThriveHive and request a free consult.