Tapping Into the Power of Analytics

What if you built a website that didn’t work? It appears online, but it just sits there. Stagnant. Ignored.

Unfortunately, too many websites are little more than online brochures. Their content is static and may not appeal to potential customers. Some organizations alter website content simply for the sake of change, without fully understanding what works.

It may be that many customers aren’t visiting your website because they are paralyzed by TMI—too much information. But there’s a simple tool for organizing website user data and finding conclusions that matter: Google Analytics, the widely used service that provides statistics about site traffic, conversions and sales.

The best thing about Google Analytics? It’s free. You can always upgrade to the premium service for additional detail, but you’ll have plenty to keep you busy with the standard version alone.

It all starts at google.com/analytics, where you simply sign up and enter the website address (or addresses) that you’re interested in analyzing. You’ll then receive a tracking code to paste into the HTML of each page on your site so Google can begin monitoring visits.

Then you wait—but not long. Within hours, you’ll start seeing data. Within weeks, you’ll begin understanding what content works and what content doesn’t. And that’s where the power of Google Analytics lives: Suddenly you can share what customers want to know.

Google Analytics provides standard and customized reports. But while it makes data available in real time, it reveals trends over a longer time period. Here are some of the facts at your fingertips:

• Users: who visits and how often
• Sessions/pages: how long they stayed and where they went on your site
• Bounce rate: did anyone leave without interacting?
• Conversion rate/goals: did your content lead to a desired action, such as a request for more information?

Helping people find your website is vital. If Google Analytics reveals lower-than-desired visitor numbers, double-check the keywords your visitors are using to find your site. Keywords are the words or phrases search engines use to locate relevant sites, and you can find out what’s leading to yours through your Google Analytics dashboard. Go outside the industry to ask for help generating a list. How do others describe what you do and what you sell? Those should be your keywords. When you write for humans first, the search engines will follow.

Amy Skidmore is an IA contributor.