First Five Analytics Reports for Small Business
Analytics is a word heard again and again yet still seems to send a bolt of fear through most marketers. To most people who are not really familiar with the digital world, web analytics can be very hard for all of us. Start simple, start free, focus on “inputs” and “outputs” .
Consider tools that are available on the market and do not necessary to have expensive software to start your effort; you may start with Piwik, Google Analytics, Clicky etc. But the most important thing is your outcome, before any analytics efforts you start think about what is your desired outcomes. You website exist because of what? What goals of your website you want to achieve? Lead generation? E-commerce conversion? Initially this will help you understand your website behavior that is tied to those goals/outcomes.
First five reports that you should consider:
1. Site Bounce Rate:
No matter what business you are in, bounce rate of your website indicate a very important message to you that how relevant your content to audience are.
2. Top Keywords from Search Engine
You probably know how important “Search” is, nowadays people rather type in keywords instead of remembering the long URL especially if people who are using Chrome browser. SMB who have small ad budgets have to leverage the power of search engine. Do this infer intent of your customers? Do this to know if you are getting the traffic you think you deserve. Figure some you may ignored keywords and take action!
3. Top Referring URL’s
Partnership with some association or corporate can be usual to SMB, Looking at the report, do you find any interesting brand name appeared? Do you have some connection with them? If not, should you?
A start to effective search strategy is to know if you are optimized for the right key phrases , and all aspects of that:
-Are you showing up in Search Engine, can search engine index your website?
-What key phrases are you wanted for people to search?
-Do you keep content update and precise with the right key phrase?
5. PPC Campaign (Search Engine Marketing)
If your company invests in PPC to drive traffics, a right marketing tag set up enhances you to better understand your PPC report. Base on the keywords you bid, the ad copy that you design, which one performs better to bring in traffics with conversion or (goal conversion)? Which cost you much but no contribution to making profit? Buying your competitor’s domain keywords?
There are many more reports help you to make decision and above were just some suggestion for SMB web analytics starters. Why not give it a try?