As a business owner, entrepreneur, or anyone sitting in a position of leadership at your company, there is one basic mistake that could cost you everything. And to be blunt, there is no good excuse if you’ve missed the mark in this area. The mistake: Failing to install & regularly check a website analytics service such as Google Analytics. There are arguably better services out there, but for the price (FREE), GA is a good place to start and will prove invaluable if you want to run a business effectively.
And leaving it completely up to someone else at your company isn’t good enough. It’s vital that you personally stay in touch with the traffic coming — or not coming — to your website. The businesses we’ve seen fail tend to bury their head in the sand when it comes to website maintenance & traffic monitoring, often because they’re not “techie” or they just don’t like “computer stuff.” It’s okay if you’re not techie but you can’t afford to be ignorant.
Here’s something to consider. In 2015 Builtwith found that 69.5% of the top 10,000 websites getting the most traffic use GA. But that number drops to 54.6% using it out of the top million websites that it tracks.
While both stats are fairly impressive, it’s interesting that the number drops off when it factors in less successful websites. And we believe there’s a lesson to be learned here.
Whether you sell products on your website or just explain the services you offer, if you want better traffic it’s important to understand:
- how much traffic you’re already getting per day/week/month (this number might shock you!)
- what percentage are new visitors vs returning
- what area do they come from (your town? interstate? overseas?)
- what type of device do they use (tells you weather they’re sitting at a desk or on the move)
- is your traffic trending upward, downward, or consistent
- did it spike when you ran an advertisement
- has your traffic dropped off…possibly due to a penalty from Google?
This type of information, and much much more, is sitting and waiting for you…and it’s easy to understand. And did I mention it’s free??
Even if you don’t necessarily need MORE traffic on your website, looking at the available metrics might tell you something about your customer base that you didn’t already know. And this could prompt you to make some changes to your product or service, adding value or increasing your sales.
The main point is that a lot of businesses struggle or even go under because they don’t take advantage of free or cheap tools that could provide TREMENDOUS INSIGHT.
Want help installing Google Analytics, or help understanding it, or leveraging it and other tools to improve the quantity and quality of traffic on your website? Get in touch with us at My Web Agent today and we’ll help you move your business in the right direction.
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