Web Analytics – Measuring Success

by blogmistress on April 25, 2011

web analyticsThe three steps to inbound marketing are: 1) Get Found; 2) Convert; and 3) Analyze. Often, a great deal of time is spent on getting found and not as much attention is given to converting and analyzing. How can we be successful without converting, and how can we know if we are successful (or not) without analyzing?

Fortunately, there are many great tools available to help us measure our success. However, web analytics should involve more than just finding out how many people have visited your site.

  • Do you have a conversion page?
  • How many people are visiting that page?
  • Once visitors are on that page, how many are converting by filling out a form or calling you?
  • Are you measuring that?

What types of conversion pages are more successful? You can use web analytics to do A/B testing to see if one conversion page setup/form/whatever is more successful than another.

Because you are probably spending some time on getting found, you should measure your success there as well.

  • How much of your traffic is coming organically from search engines?
  • What terms are people currently using to find you?
  • Do you have sites that are sending you a lot of referral traffic?
  • Are your social media efforts paying off?
  • Are you getting traffic from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.?

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. I’m often told by business owners that they get a lot of compliments on their website.  That is how they are measuring the success of their website. When asked if they are getting customers from their website, many businesses don’t really know. They think they are, but they are not sure. Web analytics puts an end to the guessing game.

Google Analytics recently rolled out a new version of their popular, free analytics program. This is a great place to start if you are not currently using web anaytics. It is easy to install, and of course, that free factor is a great bonus.

Hubspot software is the best paid analytics solution. Not only does it give you great analytic information on your business, you can measure a lot of information about your competitors as well. Hubspot is an all in one marketing platform for small and medium size businesses; so it not only gives you great analytics, it will help you with getting found and converting as well.

At Wharton Marketing, we use both Hubspot and Google Analytics. When Google Ventures recently invested in Hubspot, Google Ventures Partner, Rich Miner (co-founder of Android) said, “We agree with HubSpot’s belief that search engines, social media, and mobile devices have fundamentally changed how businesses should market themselves. We’re thrilled to support their efforts to help thousands of small and medium businesses reach potential customers.”

Don’t let web analytics be the overlooked element of inbound marketing. Know what works and what doesn’t work, and know why and change accordingly.

Key Take Away:

  1. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Use web analytics to measure your online success.

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