We live in a world where data is becoming more important than ever before. As good as it is having thousands of likes, retweets and followers, are they really of any use if they are not following through to conversions?
Data… What is it?
Data is predicted, created, consumed and spat back out again in the blink of an eye and its increasingly becoming more important to take from it what your business needs. Storage Servers have predicted that by 2018, only a year away, the world will be creating 50,000 GB a second which is a massive amount of data to analyse.
The data that we are creating goes beyond so much more than just adding photos to Facebook, videos to YouTube and sending emails to millions of people around the world. Whatever data you are creating it is vital that you are using it to improve and reach your business goals, as an insight rather than just a creation.
Basically, don’t just have the data there, do something with it!
Proactive vs. Reactive
Analytics allows you to physically watch the path your consumers are taking when on your site. Where they first started, where they came from, where they left and what they essentially were there to do. Sounds good, right?
Its only useful knowing this if you are going to be proactive with it rather than reactive. Saying “wow my bounce rate is 25%” gets you know nowhere because in reality you need to be asking why those 25% are leaving your site and resolve this issue to get the figures even lower.
Ask yourself a question about your website and then seek an answer. Use this answer to resolve the issue and move forward with new questions on how you can improve conversion rates.
Some Questions You Need to Ask
Are my pages fulfilling my customer’s needs?
Without a doubt there will be certain pages on your site that consumers probably just won’t be interested in or at least not as much as others. This is natural and can often be difficult to combat without the right knowledge.
First Digital Media and our wealth of industry experts have worked with analytics for years and can read reports like the back of our hands – not literally! We know that it is in your best interest to find these pages and resolve the issue so that the next time you check ‘Behaviour – Site Content – All Pages’, you will see an improvement on those pages that were lacking activity before.
Which platforms are coming out on top and which are falling behind?
With various platforms available to view any site on, you may think it is somewhat impossible to monitor them all at once and clearly see what your consumers are using – you’re wrong! Google Analytics shows you in pretty much black and white exactly what platforms your consumers are using. Whether that be iPhone, Android, Desktop or Tablet you can see in real time how your consumers are actively seeking your business.
Looking back at a previous blog post from our blogging team here at FDM, if you are not covering all platforms, especially mobile, in 2017 then you need to seriously up your game in the digital world or face falling behind dramatically.
How are my customers searching for my business?
Let’s take this situation for example.
Your business sells shoes, all shoes to be exact. When looking at your analytics reports you are noticing that a significant number of consumers are searching for high heels and then leaving your site when they first arrive. Do you have high heels on your site? You might have them there on the first page but if it is not clearly signposted your consumers are sure to leave and look elsewhere – get it?
Focusing on the keywords used throughout your whole site, you need to be very aware of how your consumers are searching for your business because if you’re not, they could be going to your competitors within the blink of an eye.
Improve Your Website
Forbes recently reported on how there are 14 quick ways that Google Analytics can improve your website. Some of these include:
- Analyse potential new markets you can break into
- Find your resonating content and expand on it
- The importance of attribution
- Analyse consumer trends
- Follow your consumer’s path
- Pump more into attention-grabbing pages
- Cross-channel attribution
- Identify your ‘key’ keywords
“With the advent of tools such as Google Analytics, it is now possible to track how a visitor came across your site, including from offline or internet of things sources, as well as how long visitors stayed, and what kind of content or keywords kept them there”.
Other areas of insight you get first hand include:
- What time of day your site is most active
- What content your customers are reading the most
- How long your consumers are spending on your site
- Where in the world your consumers are coming from
Get in Touch
To find out more in-depth details about Google Analytics and the technologically advanced platform it provides you with, get in touch with our team by calling 01524 544346.
