How useful are analytics when improving your site?

Analytics allow you to explore the channels your audience are using to find your website and how they are interacting with it when they get there. Capturing data on an ongoing basis allows you to analyse how successful your site is in relation to your goals and allows you to react to any issues quickly.

Analytics should work as a continuous cycle of improvement. Taking the data you gather from analytics you are able to assess if and where people are engaging with your content. Are they on the site for long? Do they stick to top level landing pages or drill down into further, more detailed content? You can look at user flow on the site and decide where you need to make changes, if any.

You are able to look at a variety of quantitative based data – including percentages and comparisons over specified time frames. In Google Analytics this information is broken down into who your audience is, how they got to your site, what they did when they got there and if they interacted how you expected with your content. Examples of some of the information that an analytics program can provide are as follows:

• How many people are using your website;
• Which pages are most popular on your website;
• How many people are following your call to actions;
• How long they spend on each page; and 
• How did they get to your site?

Let’s take a look at an example. You may have established that one of your webpages is not gaining much traffic in comparison to some of your other pages. This page may contain important information that requires greater visibility. Using engagement statistics such as time on the page and bounce or engagement rates, you can first of all see how engaged users are with your content while they are on the page. Secondly, you can look at potential reasons why stakeholders aren’t reaching this page. Is the page easy to navigate to? Is it hidden by other content? Is it linked from the homepage? Are there sufficient links and calls to action through the site to lead them to this page? By asking these questions and exploring some potential answers, you will be able to form a plan of what you think should be reworked and improved for the future. You can also go back and check this over time to see if performance has improved.

Analytics are an important part of your website maintenance. They should be given the same importance as a member of your team and be used to ensure your website is continually working for your audience. If you’d like to find out more about how we can help with your corporate website then get in touch.