I'll tell you now, if you promise to read the rest: it's analysis.
Friday was the first of the month! How many visitors did you have to your website last month? Where did they come from? What content on your site was most popular? If you’re not an analytics junkie like me, well, that’s why there’s people like me in the world.
Think about buying that new herd bull: most of you pour over sale books and pedigrees. To some, the numbers are more important than the animal itself and to others, the numbers are simply guidance. BUT, if your neighbor found the most beautiful, structurally correct, deepest, longest, thickest bull in the world and bought him without looking at the numbers, he/she could have a major disaster on their hands. Maybe the bull had a 200 lb birthweight and they went all in on a bull without knowing what impact he was going to have on their herd. You would never do that, right?
So, why would you invest in a website without knowing what you’re getting out of it? Is anyone coming to your big, beautiful, fancy new website that cost thousands of dollars? Is it converting any business? Who’s visiting from where? How did they find you? Did that expensive ad you placed in the magazine send anyone to your website? Not knowing the answers is downright scary, if you ask me. Plus the data you can gather from your website is worth the price of that new bull, if you're doing it right.
I believe the same type of analysis done in your herd, must be applied to your marketing. With an AVD website, you’ll receive monthly reports on your site’s performance. We can make adjustments to make sure we are meeting our goals.
If you have a website now, make sure you are tracking these basic metrics:
Users: Number of people visiting your site
Sessions: Number of times your site has been visited (Sessions / User tells you if people are coming back to your site)
Pageviews: Number of pages visited on your site (Pageviews / Sessions tells you if people are truly looking through your website, or seeing one page and leaving)
Bounce Rate: The number of visitors who see one page and leave. A lower number/percentage is best.
Time on Page: Time spent on your site per session or per user. Longer times are usually better.
A timeline of traffic: Shows traffic by days or months. Use this to see if traffic corresponds to advertising and which ads may have performed better.
Visitor Source: A chart to determine if visitors found you through a search engine, referral site, directly typed in your address, social media or other source.
Most Visited Pages: Besides your home page, where do visitors go the most? Knowing what is valuable to your visitors helps you provide more relevant content.
Geographic Audience: A map to show you where your visitors are located. Important when planning advertising and marketing priorities.
There are tons of metrics that you can track. Finding the ones important to your business and knowing how to make adjustments is imperative for any website. (Also, if you have a Facebook page, you can find all this same information about it, in Insights!) And trust me - it's a simple and worthwhile process!
If you want a free web analysis, give me a shout!