Make 2014 the Year You Get Analytics in Your Small Business Working for You
Knowing the sources and origins of your site's online business is a critical piece for competing in today's competitive online landscape. Analytics programs can help immensely in showing us the roadmap customers and prospects took to find us, and the actions they made once there.
Not using any, you say? Well, you've just identified job one! Until you determine a greater need, it's okay to start with Google Analytics as it will probably deliver more than you'll know how to handle. And, did I say it's free?
Once you have this rolling in, how to deal with it? Here are 5 useful tips for making use of your analytics data in 2014.
5 Ways to use analytics in your small business
- Select which performance indicators are best for you – There are quite a few items you can track, and it can be extremely overwhelming to take on the full spectrum of data at the beginning. Choose some key performance indicators that you most need to know, like conversions, referring sites, or which of your pages are most in-demand and for how long.
- Know what your Analytics mean – Most of this will be new to you at first. Spend time to learn the jargon, and the new acronyms and terms that are coming along seemingly daily. After you have a grasp on what is being shown you, you are far more able some sense of it. Also, it's extremely important to look at the data in context, that is, by viewing it with the goals of the pages in mind.
- Send yourself an email report – Your data is worthless if not acted upon. Rather than relying upon yourself to login and retrieve it on a regular basis, send yourself an automated email at regular intervals so you'll have it when you need it.
- Track more than site statistics! – Place the Analytics code in all your significant properties, including social media, squeeze and landing pages, video and email.
- Keep track of key changes – This means noting the campaigns, site changes and other significant changes that could affect traffic and conversions after awhile. A rapid spike in traffic might remain unexplained and unexploited if you're not aware of why it took place.
