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Analyzing data from your company's website can help you bottom line.
by LEE GIMPEL - January 2010

Published in :: Business

ILLUSTRATION BY TRAY BUTLER

 

Tokyo Five had a problem, and it didn’t even know it. While the fashion company’s website was attracting international customers, the visits weren’t translating into sales. A little sleuthing revealed that these customers were trying to buy apparel—but the shopping cart hadn’t been set up properly for orders from abroad.

This problem might have remained overlooked without website data. Web analytics applications draw on the ability of sites to track and report all manner of statistics, including how many people visit over a certain time period and how long they linger. And the story behind this data is vital. When Tokyo Five cross-referenced which orders weren’t being completed and where those orders were coming from, they were able to solve the problem.

“By using analytics, we can look deep inside a website to see what’s working and what’s broken,” says internet marketing consultant George Giles.

Web analytics allow you to discover if a bad customer review is hurting your sales—or if a good comment on a seemingly obscure blog is driving lots of valuable traffic. You can then use that information to address complaints and cultivate certain sites.

As far as programs go, Giles recommends Google Analytics for small- to medium-sized businesses. The free service has some shortcomings (such as not offering real-time statistics), but it’s easy to understand and provides a good array of stats, including which pages are most popular and what other sites are bringing the most traffic to your own.

Stephanie Noble, president of Paden Noble, which specializes in online marketing and brand management, suggests that companies relying on their sites to bring in business use a more sophisticated product like HubSpot. She admires the easy-to-use metrics and rating functions, which assess how well you’re using key words that bring people to your site when they run searches. The service also grades the quality of inbound links. For example, you may notice that you’re getting a lot of attention from a blog that mentioned your product. You can take that knowledge and reach out to similar blogs. HubSpot’s pricing plans range from $250/month to $12,000/year.

Richard Schneider, a web analytics expert at The Search Agency, recommends Omniture for companies that are very dependent on their web presence. It includes real-time statistics and helps track the effectiveness of your online marketing and PR strategies. Unfortunately, the product is rather costly, difficult to set up and not user-friendly for people without an analytics background.

Even if your company doesn’t depend heavily on web traffic, it never hurts to analyze your site’s data. You may discover a problem you didn’t know you had.

Published in :: Business

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