The most important things happening on your website are out of view. Where do the visitors come from, who are they, what are they clicking on? This is important knowledge to have: the more you know about your audience, the better you can cater to their preferences and wishes. That is where Google Analytics comes in!
Say, you’re sending a newsletter or starting a campaign on Facebook. Someone reads it, clicks and gets redirected to your website. Once there, this person browses the content and, intrigued by a proposition or call to action, dives headlong into the site to read more or even place an order. If all you see of this process is merely the sale at the end, you really won’t have a good idea how that came to pass. Using Analytics (a Google service), however, you are able to trace the visitor’s steps. Which platform did they come from? How long did they stay on the homepage?
Key moment
Above we described a situation in which everything worked out, but the great thing about Analytics is that you can use it to improve things when they don’t initially succeed. What if the visitor leaves the site after two seconds (the so-called bounce rate)? Or what if they snoop around, but don’t place an order, download anything or contact you? That is when you start tooling! Perhaps the initial advertisement was aimed at the wrong target audience, or potential customers stumble over something simple like shipping costs. Tracing and effectively resolving these issues requires skill, but that is something we at Vuurwerk can of course help you with.
Screenshot of an analytics environment (anonymized)
The analytics toolbox
The above picture should give you an impression of the technical wizardry available in Analytics. A selection of the measuring instruments at your disposal:
- Know where the user came from (social media, a search query, banner…)
- Achieved goals (clicks, orders, actions…)
- Timeline of results and engagement
- Utilizes UTM codes in campaigns on social media, able to track a variety of data
- Amount of sessions per source or campaign
- Which keywords create traffic on your website
Needless to say, all of this happens within the confines of Dutch privacy laws: with Analytics you expressly don’t collect personal data.
Your online strategy
Despite all this, we would like to emphasize that measuring visitors in and of itself is not particularly useful. The important thing is what you do with it. Things like: continuously optimizing your texts and campaigns, adjusting the user experience to your target audience, finding the right tone of voice. Link all of this to your booking system to gain even more insights! Before everything else, this is a strategic tool allowing you to get the most out of your online business. That will eventually ensure a steady stream of quality visitors genuinely engaged with your company.
Go for Analytics
A good corporate website is both calling card and front office. Of course you will put effort into the design, the marketing of your services and the text—but in all of this, don’t forget about Analytics. That will open up a whole new way of thinking about your online presence.
No idea where to begin? Do contact us, we’ll help you get started.