Keeping Web Analytics Simple

Posted by runmark on 21/02/2010 under Blog | Be the First to Comment

I attended the excellent Search Engine Strategies expo in London last week and – as someone with a seemingly incurable obsession with traffic stats – one debate advising businesses not to overcomplicate Web analytics really struck a chord with me.

Usually I hate numbers – I don’t know how the accountants of the world do it – but when it comes to Web traffic it’s a whole different ballgame. Maybe it’s a vanity thing, but if the numbers are down I get piqued…until I heard the wonderful expression (and it escapes me who used this turn of phrase) that “hits stands for How Idiots Track Success”. Ah, the old “quality, not quantity” chestnut.

But when it comes to small business traffic analytics it goes deeper than that. Everyone knows it’s more than just numbers – bounce rate and conversion are more meaningful by a mile – but how far small businesses delve into that data could dictate your whole Internet strategy. I use Google Analytics for my sites, but I’ve heard Yahoo’s analytics tool is also pretty useful. Google Analytics tells you all you need to know to start out with, but they’re both free. Other free tools I use are Alexa and Xinureturns (to gauge your overall performance in-country and globally). Xinu will also tell you how your site’s performing across numerous search engines and also tell you your page authority.

If you’re a small business you probably just need to keep tabs on a few key areas:

• Numbers: how is your hit rate? (More is not necessarily good without the below…)
• Keywords: What keywords are people finding your site with? Are they what you want them to find you with? If not, then you need to look again at your content and keywords to make sure they’re accurately aligned with your product, service and location. Check out our simple SEO guide for more on keywords.
• Location: Where’s the traffic coming from? If you purely service the UK then five per cent of hits from Uruguay ain’t no good…
• Arrival method: How are people finding you? Search engines? Twitter? LinkedIn? Business directories? Find out what’s working and max it. Find what’s not working and max that too.
• Landing page: Every page is a landing page, remember. Which ones are doing it for you? Is your blog attracting the hits? If so then are people exploring around your site from there? If not, why not?
• Bounce rate: See ‘Landing page’. The higher this number, the worse your site is performing. The lower the number, the better you’re doing at drawing people into your site and increasing your chances of making sales.
• Conversion: See above. If you’re not converting then something’s going drastically wrong. It’s time to reassess your overall approach.

I’m busy trying to get over my complete obsession with numbers, but if you’re new to analytics and want to learn more (as well as help RunMarketing’s bounce rate…) then check out this podcast on analytics best practice and link building with Kelvin Newman of search consultants, Site Visibility.

The key thing to remember is that analytics is a never-ending practice. Even if you’re flying high in April, you could be shot down in May, so keep on it. The Japanese call it ‘kaizen’ – continual improvement.