Tracking And Website Analytics

Do you know how many people are visiting your website? How about how long they’re staying? Or where they’re coming from? Or how many of them convert into leads or sales?

One of the great benefits of search engine optimization is the amount of data – and we’re talking good-quality data – it places at your fingertips.  Unlike some other forms of Marketing and PR that are almost impossible to track and analyze, SEO is supported by a number of key metrics that make it easy to track visitor behavior, traffic sources, and – most importantly – return on investment.

Trust us when we say that you’ll have access to more data than you know what to do with!

The practice of tracking and analyzing these metrics is called website analytics. 

Web analytics shouldn’t be treated as an SEO sideshow; it needs be an integral part of your campaign. At Strategic Marketing Academy, web analytics are absolutely essential to each and every SEO campaign we manage.  It helps us gauge how our clients’ sites are currently performing and provides clues as to where to go next.  We understand which stats are most important and what to do with the information we find.

Make Changes on the Fly

By using website analytics, you can track your successes (or failures) on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis.  While we definitely don’t advocate making daily changes, you don’t have to wait until the end of your marketing campaign to make adjustments, either.

You can tweak your campaign in real time and, hopefully, improve performance as it moves along.  Just don’t make all your changes at once or you won’t know which changes were effective.

Turn Problems into Profits

Website analytics also help you identify weak spots in your site. Do you have visitors dropping off at some point in your site’s “sales funnel”?  Maybe your visitors are getting halfway through your site’s shopping cart and then bailing.  You can tell exactly where people are leaving by looking at your web stats, and this gives you a much better idea of where to make fixes. The more you work to improve user experience, the more increases you’ll see in your bottom line.

Start with Your Log Files

Your website’s logfiles contain a goldmine of information. If you don’t currently have access to them, check with your web host. They should have the information and provide it to you, and if they say they won’t, then move your site to a host that will provide the information.

You can find all sorts of juicy bits of info in your logfiles, such as:

• Visitor’s IP Address
• Time spent on the site
• Pages viewed
• Search term used
• Files downloaded
• And much much more!

Website analytics are a must in any SEO campaign, but you have to know what to track and why it’s important.