If you have your website setup correctly you have access to a wealth of information you can view and study about how well your marketing is doing.
Knowing your
business numbers is not just about preparing management accounts, but is just as much about knowing the numbers that will help you to do more of what is working - and less of what isn't working - for you in your marketing.
Your numbers will tell you how many people are visiting your site, how they came to you, what they are reading (interested in) and much more. You can determine through your
analytics how many people landed on your website and simply bounced off to another website without sticking around to read more.
Plus if you use Google Analytics correctly you can figure out how many visitors you’re converting to subscribers and how many of those become customers.
Here are some of
numbers you'll want to look on a regular basis:
- How many visitors – This tells you the visitor numbers to your website (check unique visitors), it’s a great indicator if your content marketing is working or not, but do remember that content marketing takes a while to really kick in and start delivering (4-6 or more months). If your visitors are steadily moving
upwards then your content is working and attracting people to your site.
- How many new visitors – Knowing if you’re attracting old or new visitors is important as this helps you to understand if your audience is growing as your circle of influence grows.
- Where do visitors come from – This is an extremely important metric, because if you have more visitors coming from one particular source, Twitter for example, then you can put more effort into that, than say Facebook which isn’t delivering as many visitors.
- How many repeat visitors – Having visitors that come back to your
website time and time again is a great indication that you have content that your audience really wants. If you have a low repeat visitor count, you may not be converting new visitors into fans with your content or you are simply attracting the wrong audience, either way it is something you need to know about and take action on.
- How many visitors bounce off –
Every website will have some people that land on the site and bounce off, but if you have a super-high bounce rate, it can be a sign of poor audience targeting.
- How many visitors hang about – Look at how many people hang about and read your blog posts, and what they’re reading. Simply create more content of what they are reading and less of what they
aren’t.
- How many visitors comment – Engagement is also a great sign of good social media marketing and if you don’t have enough people commenting, do what you can to get more, even if you don’t answer a question fully and ask your audience for suggestions.
And the two most important numbers of all:
- How many visitors subscribe to your list – One of the main reasons to drive people to your website or blog is to get them to subscribe to your email list/newsletter. You need to do whatever is required to collect as many targeted subscribers as possible. Why, because it’s this list that will
help you earn repeat website and blog visitors and where you’ll get our customers from.
- How many subscribers convert to customers – The other number that is essential to know is how many of these subscribers convert to customers. This will help you know if what you’re doing is working in the way that you expect. Do, however, understand your buying cycle.You’re
not going to sell a plush new house as easily as a dollar item, so understand what it takes to get people to convert… and for those high cost items, consider trip wire marketing.
If you don’t know all of this information, I suggest you get inside your Google Analytics account and take it for a spin because it’s it’ll be hard to know if what you’re doing is working. If you
really want to make your business succeed online and exceed expectations then looking at these numbers, understanding them and then responding to them with appropriate action can make all the difference between success and failure.
Noel Guilford