6 Reasons Executives Should Pay Attention To Web Analytics
With over half of the worldwide population now having access to the internet, most executives understand that having a website for their business in non-negotiable.
Many executives fail to understand that in order for their website to perform as well as possible, they need to be regularly looking at their web analytics.
Even those that do understand find themselves in a position where they’re having to prioritise tasks, and for many, looking at web analytics isn’t seen as important.
The reality is, however, that web analytics can make or break your businesses online success.
They are also key in helping you overcome potential competition, by giving you all the information you need about your audience in one report.
If you aren’t yet convinced that analytics are a good use of your time as an executive, keep reading, as we explain just how powerful of a tool analytics could be for you.
To Understand Your Demographic
Most—if not all—web analytics services will provide you with access to information about those who access your website.
Otherwise known as your demographic, this side to analytics will tell you about the age, sex, and location.
Knowing this information could provide you with a better idea of your target audience.
It may also give you a clearer understanding of whether you’re attracting the audience you intended to your website.
If you aren’t, using analytics can help you understand how to change this.
To Personalize Your Marketing
By using analytics to better understand your audience, you are in a unique position to personalize your marketing in a way that best resonates with them.
If you are attracting a large proportion of millennials, for example, it’s probably best not to rely on traditional marketing when 84% say they don’t trust it.
Equally, you may use analytics and find that you have a significant amount of older people accessing your website.
They are often forgotten about, with less than 5% of advertising focused on them, leaving you in a unique position to take advantage of the audience you’ve discovered through analytics.
To Understand What Your Target Audience Are Looking For
One of the reasons web analytics are so important is because they help you to figure out the core motivations of your target audience.
According to Digital Authority Partners, these numbers are often key in answering important questions, and working out how effective your website is for your target audience.
One of the ways to find this out is to monitor what’s bringing people to your website and what’s making them leave.
Knowing this information over time will allow you to phase out what isn’t working, and focus on producing more of the features and/or content that your audience is looking for.
To Understand If Your Website Design Is Effective
You might not think analytics have anything to do with your website design, but in fact, the opposite is true.
In reality, having analytics that tell you what parts of your website people are accessing may help you discover parts of the website that are being completely ignored.
If this is the case, it might have less to do with not being what your target audience are looking for and more to do with the fact that your website isn’t navigational.
This is something you must consider under the WCAG guidelines and the ADA, so if there are parts of your website that are being completely ignored you may want to change the way they are accessed.
People are also far more likely to read or browse through something that is aesthetically pleasing than something unattractive, which will reflect in your analytics, too.
To Find Out Where Your Traffic Is Coming From
A lot of company executives are constantly looking for ways to increase their website traffic without understanding where it’s already coming from.
The good news is that analytics will completely break this down for you.
Using them, you will out whether search engines or social media are the best traffic source of your business at the moment.
If it’s social media, it will also tell you which social media is performing the best, and which you might be wasting your time with.
Many analytics go further than this, however, and will even tell you if your traffic comes from a desktop or mobile device.
To Improve Website Traffic
Once you have information about where your traffic comes from, you are provided with a wealth of information that allows you to improve it.
If you aren’t receiving much traffic from mobile devices, it may suggest that your website isn’t mobile friendly.
When it’s predicted that 72.6 percent of internet users will access the web solely via their smartphones by 2025, it’s important to change this to make your site accessible as soon as possible to avoid losing sales.
These analytics metrics may also tell you that you need to put more effort into certain aspects of your marketing—whether that be your use of social media, or sourcing effective keywords within your niche to target search engine traffic.
Summary
As you can see, web analytics are more important to a business than it might initially seem.
They are fundamental to any business with an online website if you want to truly understand how it is performing.
Not only will they provide you with in-depth knowledge about what you’re succeeding with, but it will also give you an improved idea of areas you need to improve on.
Knowing this information will allow you to sit with others in your business and come up with goals that are backed by data, instead of blinding propelling things forwards with no idea whether previous goals have been achieved.
Regularly paying attention to your analytics will also allow you to track how well you’re doing with your goals.
Having this information at your disposal then allows you to make changes as you see fit, which will create a more successful business in the long run.
This article comes from Codrin Arsene @ Digital Authority Partners