How to Easily Understand Your Website Analytics
The Kate Show | Episode 223
"I need more website traffic," is a common statement that hits my inbox from interior designers, home stagers, and organizers who want more clients. However, many business owners aren't aware of their existing website traffic stats. This presents a problem: Unless you know where you are, you can't know where you need to go.
"I look at my website analytics, but I can't make sense of them." Relatable much? If either of these situations describes you, prepare to be enlightened. Today on The Kate Show, I'm breaking down the website traffic and analytics mystery. You'll learn where to find your website data, what parts you should focus on, and how to improve them overall so that you can get more of the right leads coming to your website.
This episode is brought to you by SideDoor.
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This episode is brought to you by Angel's Linings.
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How to Easily Understand Your Website Analytics
Before we dive into the what, where, and when of your website analytics, let's start with why. Why do you need to be aware of your website data — and isn't that just for techy website developers? Hardly!
In short, you need to know where your website traffic is coming from to determine which marketing efforts are working. Wouldn't it be a shame to spend months working on your social media presence, only to learn later that you'd generated nearly no new website traffic from it?
Or what if you spent six months blogging and gave up due to a perceived lack of results, only to find out that the blogging momentum you had built was actually catapulting your website to the top of the ranks? Data matters.
Where to find your website analytics
If your website platform offers in-platform analytics, you'll need to log in as the administrator to view them. Some website platforms, like Squarespace, will also integrate with Google Analytics to give you a deeper, more complete picture of your website traffic and other data without ever leaving your website. Super helpful!
Other website platforms, such as WordPress, require you to install analytics plugins. These plugins should be installed before your website launches. If your website has already launched, simply install and set up the plugin, then wait at least 30 days (or even 90 days, if you can be patient) before looking at the data it has collected. If you check it sooner than 30 days, you simply won't have allowed enough time for any valuable data to be aggregated.
Google Analytics vs. your website platform's built-in analytics
Google Analytics captures more information and is all-around more helpful in determining: 1) how someone found your website, 2) what they did once they arrived, and 3) the click path they took before leaving.
For example, we've been able to track our clients' leads throughout their journey on our clients' websites. The lead comes to the website because a blog post from the site showed up in search results (via Google or Pinterest, usually). Once they read the blog post, they click on the portfolio page (which is often linked inside the blog post, when relevant). After checking out the portfolio page, they navigate to services. From services, they click a call-to-action that tells them to book a call or complete the contact form.
Your built-in website analytics will not show you this amazingly helpful journey that tells you the layout of your website is working, but Google Analytics will! Conversely, Google Analytics can also show you where most people leave your website. It's common for the bulk of your traffic to leave after viewing the home page, but speaking as a website designer myself, that is something we try to mitigate by creating well-developed and robust home pages that give visitors ample opportunity and reason to click through to another page.
Google Analytics is now much more user-friendly
As of July 1st, 2023, the old Google Analytics will be replaced by Google Analytics 4 (GA4). If you are using the older version of Google Analytics, all your data collection will stop on that date. I suggest switching early! It's on my to-do list as well, and here's how.
GA4 is simpler, meaning far less overwhelm and confusion when you start tracking your data. Hurray for that simplification. It was time!
The top 3 website stats you should be tracking
It's easy to get distracted by all the graphs, charts, and percentages displayed by your analytics. The good news? You really only need to track three things:
How are people finding your website? Most often, it will be direct URL, organic search, and Pinterest.
What are the most popular pages on your website? Typically, the home page is the most popular, which means that page should be robust and complete.
What do people do when they come to your website? Yep, back to that click path!
How to improve your website analytics and traffic
After you start using Google Analytics and tracking your data, you might realize that your website traffic is low or that people aren't finding your website at all. If that is the case, you'll need to make a short series of assessments:
Is your Google Business Listing (GBL) current? GBL is a great, free way to get your business on the map and send traffic to your website, but only if it is optimized correctly.
Are you using Google Search Console? This is another free tool from Google, and it helps Google index your site to understand what it contains and who should be seeing it. Connecting to your website is easy and a must-do for every business owner.
Is your website SEO good? SEO requires that your copywriting and image filenames include keywords such as the location you serve and the services you offer; it also means your website should be speaking directly to your specific ideal client for best results. Additionally, SEO demands that your images be sized appropriately (no bigger than 2500 pixels in either direction) and that you include buttons that aren't vaguely named (aka: descriptive tap targets). There are also a lot of outdated SEO ideas that you should avoid, such as keyword stuffing or creating a new website page for every area that you serve.
Are you producing at least one blog post per month? Ugh, the dreaded blog! Blogging is the best way to increase your website traffic. If you are blogging about topics that relate to your services and your ideal client, you'll naturally incorporate the long- and short-tail keywords that Google requires in order to understand who should see you in their search results. Blogging increases the surface area of your website. The more surface area, the more visitors you'll be able to attract.
Are you supporting your website with a sales funnel? Blogging by itself won't bring you more clients, but it will certainly bring more website traffic. Offer a freebie on your website to entice those website visitors to opt into your mailing list, then use email marketing to convert those new contacts into clients.
Resources
Need blog posts for your business, or maybe the entire sales funnel? Go here now.
