Although Google Analytics and other visitor tracking programs are highly useful tools, generally speaking, they are too powerful to the average user. If the user chooses, he/she can spend hours upon hours analyzing every visitor that enters into their website. There are three key components which I use monthly to analyze my website’s visitor trends to ensure my website is serving as a sales tool:
Keywords Used
This section of Google Analytics allows you to see which keywords visitors are using to locate my website. After exporting the list of keywords used to attract visitors, you can then highlight the profitable keywords. Sort through the list and organize the not so profitable keywords. Are the majority of website visitors using words that lead to new clients or are they general searches of irrelevant information? If the keywords that are attracting visitors are not money makers, then it is time to edit the website’s SEO plan to improve rankings for more profitable keywords.
Navigation Path
Generally, the home page is where the majority of visitors enter into a website. Where they go from there is of great interest. If 60% of visitors navigate to a particular service, then I know there is a hot item within my site. Is this service my target area? Is this page leading to new sales contacts? If not, how can I turn this traffic into sales leads?
Another point of interest to explore using the navigation path section of Google analytics is to review exit pages. If the majority of website visitors are coming to the home page, looking at 1 service page, then leaving, you have to ask yourself why? Are they not happy with the web content, are they looking for rates, do they need more examples of work completed? All of these factors are questions you must ask yourself if you see a large portion of traffic leaving before navigating to the contact page.
Top Pages
By reviewing the top pages section in Google Analytics, I can determine what pages of my websites are of interest to my visitors. Generally speaking, the optimal navigation route is home page to specific service page to the contact us page. If you are not receiving phone calls or form submissions from your website, then it is time to enter into the war room. What changes can be made to get those inquiries?
Google Analytics offers a wide array of options to gather data from your web traffic. That being said, I have found by analyzing the three sections listed above, I have been able to modify my website based on visitor trends into a valuable sales tool.
