Firstly I would like to apologise for the last blog not being as advertised, but as you were left in the capable hands of the lovely Mrs Mitchell-Mehta who taught you about exhibiting must dos, it more than makes up for my absence.
So, resuming my position in the hot seat and without further ado, I will endeavour to explain how you can use analytics to “age” your website as I embark on part deux of ‘The tell tale signs that your website is in the autumn of its life’
There are some amazing analytics packages out there which tell you most things about your customers. For example: their age, source, visiting frequency, visit time, inside leg measurements and how they like their eggs in the morning…na, not the latter, I just wanted to see if you were paying attention. But the most important thing to a website is traffic, if you don’t have traffic you won’t need analytics. Just like the most important thing to traffic is fuel, if you don’t have engaging products and content you won’t get traffic…it’s a cycle.
So how can analytics give you an indication that your site has seen better days?
Well let’s focus on what you can find out about your traffic.
-
Where is your traffic landing?
Well it very much depends on the relationship your website has with search engine results and other sites. You should be ranking for keywords specific to a page and there should be a link to take customers directly there. Hence every page of your website is potentially a ‘ first impression page’ so they all need to be up to date and reflective of your company.
-
How long is your traffic staying?
This is a tricky one to analyse. You could argue that staying on a site for a long time shows that the customer has enjoyed their experience. Or, you could argue that they could not find what they were looking for. Purchases and pages visited should help you determine which applies to your site. A main point to look out for is ‘bounce rate’ or in other words, whether they arrive and leave on the same page (usually the home page). This could indicate that they accidentally arrived at your site or found it so offensive they left immediately. I doubt it’s the latter so you may consider working on the enticing aspects of your site.
-
What is the recency and frequency of your traffic?
If you build it they will come, but will they come back? By being able to tell whether your traffic are all returning customers or new visitors you can ascertain if your marketing is working and whether you are spreading the word adequately. New customers are great but you want to turn them into returning customers.
-
When they arrive, where are they going?
If a customer arrives on your site, goes straight to what they want, purchases and leaves then this is both a good and a bad thing. On one hand it shows they know what they want and are probably a returning customer but they aren’t staying to look around! If they are a new customer then it shows your site is clear and concise and it’s an indication that you should check the source of these type of customers.
I could talk about this topic all day but I won’t. Perhaps next week I’ll treat you to some KPI banter. Sound good? Well you know where to be….see you then.