Website Monitoring & Data Analytics!
Introduction To Web & Data Analytics!
The world of web analytics can feel very overwhelming.
There are many metrics to recognize and analyze when tracking the progress of any campaign or website. This is normally done through the use of web analytics.
Starting Out:
Web analytics involves monitoring the marketplace and making sense of the vast quantities of data available. This data is crucial for successful digital marketing as web analytics is how we track our progress to determine a ROI (Return-On-Investment).
It is important to recognize that there are two categories of Web Analytics!
Off-Site Web Analytics refers to web measurement and analysis regardless of whether you own or maintain a website. It includes the measurement of a website’s potential audience (opportunity), share of voice (visibility), and overall buzz (comments, trends) that is happening on the internet as a whole.
On-Site Web Analytics measure a visitor’s behavior once on your website. This includes its drivers and conversions. This data is typically compared against key performance indicators for performance, and used to improve a website or marketing campaign.
Utilizing Google Analytics:
Google Analytics is one of the most important and useful software programs when it comes to tracking your digital marketing efforts.
Google Analytics is a tool used for collecting and integrating data in order to report on activities, both past and present. This data can then be used to predict the future!
This tool allows staff to pull relevant data from a company database where it can then be viewed on a computer screen using a data visualization tool known as a dashboard.
This data can then be utilized to predict a future scenario. Web analytic tools such as Google Analytics allows businesses to forecast with a high degree of confidence (as long as the data collected is accurate).
Key Metrics To Begin:
If you’re just a beginner when it comes to using software like Google Analytics, have no fear! Don’t get all confused with all the different metrics located within the dashboard. Although each of these metrics are important, the five key metrics listed below are the most important when beginning to use tools like Google Analytics. Once you begin to understand each of these five metrics more clearly, then you can begin to explore the other measurement tools that Google Analytics has to offer.
5 Key Metrics To Analyze:
1) Visits:
Paying attention to how many website visits you get is a good starting point!
2) Traffic Sources:
Seeing where your website traffic comes from is another good metric to analyze when assessing your analytic reports.
3) Bounce Rate:
What percentage of visitors leave your website within a few seconds?
4) Time On Website:
How long did your visitors stay on your website? What pages held the longest time?
5) Pages Per Visit:
How many pages did your traffic visit?
Assess & Progress!
Tracking and measuring your digital marketing efforts is a must in order to improve. Utilize free tools out there like Google Analytics to track your digital marketing efforts. Even if you are not an online marketer, tools like Google Analytics have made it possible for anyone to progress in their digital marketing efforts.
The world of digital marketing changes every second. Make sure to utilize web analytic tools to be caught up with the changes. This is the most important concept to understand in order to survive in the digital world today!