In any website, analytics serve a key purpose: to track and improve marketing efforts using measurable data. From preventing ineffective campaigns to optimising existing marketing strategies, analytics are essential for better conversions.
Yet, not everybody sees analytics through the same lens. In fact, many business owners barely even look at their website analytics. They have been recommended to do so, but don’t. The reason being: they have no idea how to analyse the data, or may not know why it matters, in the first place.
If you’re the kind of business owner who can’t figure out the importance of analytics, this ends today. Analytics aren’t mere numbers – they’re the pointers you need to boost your sales. In this article, you’ll understand a bit more about the benefits this data can bring you.
But first…
What Tools Are Available?
When it comes to tracking and measuring data, there are a lot of different analytics tools you can use. These include:
Google Analytics. The most widely known web analytics service, Google Analytics (Soon to be Google Analytics 4) helps users collect visitor insights and boost website performance. The only problem with GA is its lack of GDPR compliance, which prevents European users from accessing its benefits. Best of all: It’s 100% free.
UseFathom.com: Fathom’s entire company was built with one purpose in mind: user privacy. It’s a great Google Analytics alternative, thanks to their GDPR, CCPA, ePrivacy, PECR (and more) compliance.
Matomo.com: Just like Fathom, Matomo Analytics helps marketers understand visitors’ individual behaviour while fully respecting their privacy. Matomo is both GDPR and CCPA compliant.
Why It’s Important to Use Analytics on Your Website
Know Where Your Visitors Are Coming From
Are your visitors reaching your website organically or through paid ads? Are they reaching your site through Facebook? Instagram? Or somewhere else?
Website analytics provide information about where your traffic comes from, so you can zero in on that channel. For example: if you see that most of your visitors land on your website from Instagram, a smart idea would be to focus your content marketing and advertising on that platform.
Track User Behaviour
Analytics helps marketers control what they can control when it comes to user behaviour. They can help you answer questions such as:
- How long, on average, do visitors stay on your website?
- Before they leave your website, how many pages do they typically visit?
- Is there usually a last page they visit before they leave the site?
- What pages do they visit the most?
This data is useful for troubleshooting potential bottlenecks within your web pages. For example: if your analytics indicate a high bounce rate, you could hypothesise that they aren’t getting the clear answers they need from the get-go. With that in mind, you could survey your customers on whether they’re finding the content on your website useful, as well as how you can improve it.
Track and Measure Goals
A business without a goal isn’t a business. Most websites, if not all of them, have one or more goals they want visitors to reach. These could be filling out a lead magnet, clicking “learn more”, playing a video, or buying a product.
By tracking whether your visitors are achieving the goals you’ve established for your website, analytics can help you fine-tune strategies across your pages.
This can be tricky to implement on any analytics platform. For Google Analytics it is common to use Google Tag Manager to add this layer. For Fathom Analytics you must add some code, but with SixFive’s no-code Fathom Analytics Conversions Plugin you can get conversions easily through a couple of simple options.
Access User Demographics
When users allow your website to track and collect their data, you’ve got a wealth of information in your hands. In the case of privacy-focused analytics, you can skip the cookie and go straight to data collection.
Demographic data (such as gender, location, time zone, devices, browsers) is handy when it comes to fleshing out your customer personas. Only, you won’t be winging it – you’ll be using a reliable data source, instead.
Create Better Targeted Content
Do you know what type of content your audience wants to see? Or are you creating content based on what you think they might enjoy?
Thanks to analytics, you’re able to see what type of content (such as blog posts) is performing well, and what type of content isn’t succeeding. This allows you to refine your content strategy and focus on what you know your audience will like to see.
Identify Issues
When looking at your analytics, you can easily identify problem areas like bounce rates and exit rates. Bounce rates refer to the percentage of people who have “bounced”, or left your website after visiting a single page. Whereas exit rates indicate how often visitors exit the website after visiting a certain web page.
Being aware of these issues as soon as they arise can help you mitigate them before they start hurting your conversions.
Perform Internal Site Searches
Various websites feature a search functionality, which might be the case of yours. By connecting tools like Site Search to your website, you’ll have access to visitors’ internal searches on your website. This way, you’ll better understand their needs and improve your marketing as a result.
A Final Word of Advice
Although Google Analytics is useful and comes at no cost, it’s still illegal in the European Union (EU). That said, you may want to consider using equally useful alternatives such as Fathom – which is included in SixFive’s Care Plans.
Ultimately, user data tracking and collection should aim to help you without invading their privacy. If you’d like to know more about the importance of privacy-focused analytics (as well as service options), check out our post on Analytics and Privacy Regulations.
