Google Analytics is an invaluable free tool which provides incredible insights into how a visitor engages with a website. Many business owners are unaware of the full functionality of this invaluable tool to help them increase their website conversions.
The following are some of the important features you can use to make the best use of Google Analytics to improve your Search Engine Optimization in The Woodlands, and overall website performance:
Look for trends which indicate what months, days of the week and time, you have the most visits. Is it early in the morning? During lunchtime? After work? Do you have higher engagement on the weekend?
Identifying a pattern and having quantifiable data on visitor engagement can help you plan your online marketing activities when the engagement levels are at their peak so you can increase website conversions.
On the other hand, you can also use this data from Google Analytics to perform website updates and maintenance when visitor activity on your website is at its lowest.
The volume and quality of traffic to your website has a huge impact on generating leads and increasing conversions. A clear insight into traffic performance allows you to focus on optimizing traffic sources which are most effective instead of wasting time on traffic sources which aren’t helping with lead generation or website conversions.
Use the Channels report functionality in Google Analytics to check which of the top 10 traffic sources have bounce rates of over 50% and the ones you feel are important, but are missing from the top 10.
You can then focus on optimizing the channels which deliver the best returns. For example, if YouTube traffic isn’t converting well, you could revisit your video content to see how it can be improved. The same applies to your SEO and paid search campaigns.
Landing pages which receive a large volume of traffic but aren’t converting, need to be quickly optimized.
Examine the last 30 days landing pages report to see which pages from the top 10 have a bounce rate of over 50%, and which ones have low goal conversion rates. These will indicate which pages are performing poorly.
Landing pages are the first pages your prospect will see and if they cannot find what they are looking for, they will leave your website within a few seconds.
Instead of assuming what visitors are clicking on and which pages they visit, use the Click Map feature of Google Analytics on important pages to gain an insight into how users engage with your website.
Based on the insights you can improve the website by focusing on areas which receive the most visitor attention. For instance, you can remove links which aren’t clicked on or reorganize navigation menus based on the pages which get higher engagement and are most aligned with your goals.
You could consider turning on the enhanced link attribution feature in your Google Analytics settings. When you have multiple links on a page which point to a single destination page, it makes click tracking more accurate.
The top pages report provides a wealth of information about website performance. You can determine if any of the top pages have a high exit rate and immediately optimize these pages.
You can also check if any pages relating to your main goals are missing from the report or have low levels of traffic. For example, if few people are visiting your About Us or offer pages, you can make the links to these pages more prominent to increase website conversions.
If you are offering visitors a Free Report or have a Flash video on your website, Google analytics allows you to track how many times a PDF has been downloaded or the number of times the video has been played.
Event tracking enables you to track user behavior which may or may not have led to a user ending up on a Confirmation or Thank You Page.
For example, if you find that visitors who watch an explainer video on a landing page are twice as likely to convert to sales, you can use videos on different landing pages and even test different videos on a landing page to see if you get more conversions.
With more people browsing the internet on mobile devices, it is essential to track how they interact with your website.
How much of your traffic is from smartphones and tablets? Do they stay on your website longer than visitors who use a desktop? How does shopping cart abandonment rate of mobile device users compare with that of non-mobile users?
If you are using paid traffic sources, such as Facebook advertising, this information is invaluable. For instance, if a larger number of your website visitors are smartphone users, you can target your advertising directly to them which increases your website conversions.
This post has covered a tiny fraction of how you can use Google Analytics to increase website conversions. If you’re looking to get your website performing at a level which generates consistent leads or sales, it may be worthwhile hiring a competent Digital Marketing Agency in The Woodlands who can help you meet your business goals.
