This week’s “Ask the Mompreneur” features an interview with Justin Cutroni, a website Analytics Advocate for Google.
Ask the Mompreneur:
Once you have your company website for up and running, how can you tweak it to bring in more business?
Justin Cutroni:
The key to any successful business is measuring what's working and what's not. The same holds true for your website. It's important for you to measure traffic to your website, and if it's contributing to your business goals. By using free tools like Google Analytics, you can see how visitors are finding and interacting with your site, which can help you improve your customer experience and drive more success.
Here are a few quick things that every business should do to measure the effectiveness of their website with Google Analytics.
Identify the business goals of your site and track them correctly
When it comes to your website, one of the most important metrics to track is conversions - which is when a visitor to your site completes an important task. The conversions that matter will differ for every business, but every company should outline the primary business objectives of their website (called macro-conversions). This can be completing a sale or filling out a "Get a Quote" form.
It's equally important to figure out what smaller actions (called micro-conversions) might lead someone to a macro-conversion down the line - like visiting the "Contact Us" page, spending more than 10 minutes on your site, viewing a certain number of videos, or signing up for an email newsletter. You can measure micro-conversions by setting up your analytics tools to track these actions just as you track macro-conversions.
Get to the bottom of your bounce rates
Once you track conversions, you need to understand why people don't convert. A little metric called bounce rate can help.
Bounce rate represents the people that visit one page on your website and leaving immediately after viewing that page. A high bounce rate could signal that they're not finding what they need right away. Think about what information your customers might be seeking, like contact information or product details, and make sure it's front and center on your site. Bounce rates can also show how effective your marketing campaigns are. For instance, if you're running an email marketing campaign but find that they're resulting in visits with high bounce rates, you might be directing people to the wrong page on your site.
Use the data to optimize your marketing efforts
Businesses spend a lot of resources getting potential customers to visit their websites, so it's crucial to understand which of those efforts are generating valuable customers, and which ones aren't. You can do this by using the Traffic Sources reports to view visitors coming from different traffic sources like organic search, social media, or marketing campaigns. Maybe you'll find that the ad campaigns that you run at the beginning of the week are driving more conversions than those at the end of the week, so you can shift your marketing dollars accordingly.
Jennie Wong, Ph.D., is a syndicated business writer, executive coach, and the author of “Ask the Mompreneur: Small Business Advice on Starting and Growing Your Own Company,” available at www.JennieWong.com. Email your entrepreneurship questions to TheJennieWong@gmail.com.
