Do you know how effective your website is and if it is showing return on investment? A website can be described as your business’ virtual storefront in the online world and hence needs to entice new leads and clients to come inside and look around. We have already touched on a few design and usability issues to consider in our Development Pitfalls to Avoid post. Still, it is alarming how many companies underestimate the power of a user-friendly website and are perfectly content with a pretty, but functionally useless website.
By installing an analytics package you can transform your website into a powerful marketing tool by measuring visitor engagement with your website. There are various analytics packages available, either paid-for software like SAS Analytics or free platforms like Google Analytics. Below are a few of the questions that you can answer by analysing the metrics you’ll get from an analytics package.
How many visitors and page impressions has your website received?
Your analytics package will show the total number of visitors to your website during a certain time period as well as the number of absolute unique visitors, the number of new versus returning visitors and which browsers visitors are using to view your website.
How did visitors find your website?
Under Traffic Sources in the Google Analytics dashboard you are able to see which keywords and key-phrases visitors used to find your website as well as which websites and search engines directed traffic to your website. The most popular keywords and key-phrases can be used in your keyword strategy to enhance your search engine optimisation campaign.
Are your visitors converting?
An analytics package allows you to assign goals you would like visitors to complete and to measure the success of these goals. Goals can include completing a contact form, downloading a brochure or signing up for a newsletter – all actions that can turn visitors into leads and ultimately clients.
Which pages on your website are the most popular?
Under the Content tab in your Google Analytics dashboard you are able to see which pages are the most popular and which pages have the highest exit rate. You should pay special attention to pages with a high bounce rate. This information can be found under the Visitors tab. Pages with high bounce rate are those that visitors land on and then leave immediately, rather than continuing to browse the site. This could indicate that visitors are not finding the information that they expect on the page, or that you’re navigation is a problem. If visitors from search engines almost immediately click away from your website it is highly likely that your website’s content is irrelevant to the keywords or key-phrases they searched for. The Site Overlay tool is handy to see which menu items and links are clicked on the most.
When used correctly your analytics software can help improve your website’s usability and navigation structure and ultimately your visitors browsing experience. It is wise to compile monthly website analytics reports to track your visitors’ behaviour and to determine whether the changes you make to your site have made any difference.

Do you know how effective your website is and if it is showing return on investment? A website can be described as your business’ virtual storefront in the online world and hence needs to entice new leads and clients to come inside and look around. We have already touched on a few design and usability issues to consider in our Development Pitfalls to Avoid post. Still, it is alarming how many companies underestimate the power of a user-friendly website and are perfectly content with a pretty, but functionally useless website.

By installing an analytics package you can transform your website into a powerful marketing tool by measuring visitor engagement with your website. There are various analytics packages available, either paid-for software like SAS Analytics or free platforms like Google Analytics. Below are a few of the questions that you can answer by analysing the metrics you’ll get from an analytics package.

How many visitors and page impressions has your website received?

Your analytics package will show the total number of visitors to your website during a certain time period as well as the number of absolute unique visitors, the number of new versus returning visitors and which browsers visitors are using to view your website.

How did visitors find your website?

Under Traffic Sources in the Google Analytics dashboard you are able to see which keywords and key-phrases visitors used to find your website as well as which websites and search engines directed traffic to your website. The most popular keywords and key-phrases can be used in your keyword strategy to enhance your search engine optimisation campaign.

Are your visitors converting?

An analytics package allows you to assign goals you would like visitors to complete and to measure the success of these goals. Goals can include completing a contact form, downloading a brochure or signing up for a newsletter – all actions that can turn visitors into leads and ultimately clients.

Which pages on your website are the most popular?

Under the Content tab in your Google Analytics dashboard you are able to see which pages are the most popular and which pages have the highest exit rate. You should pay special attention to pages with a high bounce rate. This information can be found under the Visitors tab. Pages with high bounce rate are those that visitors land on and then leave immediately, rather than continuing to browse the site. This could indicate that visitors are not finding the information that they expect on the page, or that you’re navigation is a problem. If visitors from search engines almost immediately click away from your website it is highly likely that your website’s content is irrelevant to the keywords or key-phrases they searched for. The Site Overlay tool is handy to see which menu items and links are clicked on the most.

When used correctly your analytics software can help improve your website’s usability and navigation structure and ultimately your visitors browsing experience. It is wise to compile monthly website analytics reports to track your visitors’ behaviour and to determine whether the changes you make to your site have made any difference.