This week’s list of ideas to help you Power Up your website is based around using analytics and data. Thanks to free software such as Google Analytics, Open Web Analytics and Piwik it’s never been easier for small to medium sized websites to get access to the type of data that has traditionally been the preserve of enterprise level businesses.

If you haven’t installed any analytics software on your website, we strongly recommend you do. You’ll instantly have access to information about how people discovered your website, how they behave once they are on your website, areas where you can improve and much more.

1. Every website has KPIs, what are yours?

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are not exclusive to ecommerce websites. It doesn’t matter if you run a small personal blog or a large multi-national you still have KPIs to aim for. For example, if you write a blog these may be based around bounce rate, traffic numbers or the amount of time someone spends reading your blog post. Defined KPIs are also extremely useful to focus your time and effort on the areas that matter. Example KPIs include:

KPI	DESCRIPTION
Subscriber Rate	# of Subscribers/ Unique Visits
Leads/Sales Generated	# of leads/sales directly attributed to blog referral
Avg. Ad income per page	Total Ad income/# of pages
Avg. Ad income per visitor	Total Ad Income/ Unique Visits

 

Table adapted from https://blog.crazyegg.com/2013/01/22/best-website-kpi/ which has some great advice on the best KPIs to target. Additionally, webseoanalytics.com has a useful list of 20 KPIs you should monitor in Google Analytics.

2. Create content based on your visitors’ behaviour

One of the main goals of any website should be to create content that appeals to your target audience and visitors. You can use Google Analytics to create more of the content your visitors like, make it easier to find the information they are looking for, and make your top converting products more prominent. Two examples include:

Example one: Make your best performing products more prominent

By enabling ecommerce tracking you will instantly see which products are your bestsellers. Even if you already know which ones they are, you can then combine that information with visitor behaviour on your website to see how many visitors converted (your bestsellers do not always have the best conversion rate), and which pages drive the most sales. Using this data you can:

• Push those products in your customer email marketing.
• Create a “Featured Products” section on your homepage.
• Lock them as the top results in each category they are in.
• Use them in your “Related Product” displays.
• Write a feature about them on your blog.
• Use them in your upsell and cross-sell marketing.

Example two: Write more blog posts similar to those that have the best engagement metrics

A great blog post does not have to sit alone; there are always new angles to take and ideas to explore on any given topic. Identify which blog posts had the most page views, the longest time on page, the most new visits and lowest bounce rates and then write more about that topic. It’s what your readers want and it’s what attracts new readers!

3. Optimise your website based on visitor technology

The rise of smartphones, tablets, larger screen sizes, new operating systems, and competing web browsers has led to a huge fragmentation in the types of technology being used to access websites. The days of focusing just on desktop PCs using Windows and either Internet Explorer or Firefox are long gone.

Rather than guessing or trying to cover absolutely every piece of technological soup, use Google Analytics’ Audience > Technology and Audience > Mobile reports to build a defined picture of how people view your website.  This is especially useful if you are redesigning your website.

You can use any of the following data as standard, and in any combination if you use custom reports.

• Browser (and which version): Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer etc.
• Operating system: Windows, Macintosh, iOS etc.
• Screen resolution: Size of the screen viewing your website.
• JavaScript enabled: Yes or no.
• Device type: Desktop, mobile or tablet.
• Device model: iPhone, Samsung Galaxy S3, Nexus 5 etc.

These reports are also extremely useful for identifying common technology or combinations of technologies where your website isn’t displaying correctly or is taking too long to load. High bounce rate, lower than average conversion rates and very short visitor duration are red flags for you to investigate.

4. Install heat maps to remove the guess work

If you have designed a website or you have worked with one for a period of time, you instinctively know where to click and how to get to every page. Is this also true for new visitors?

Using heat map software you can see exactly where people are clicking on a page. Are your CTA buttons obvious enough? Are people clicking on an image that has no link? Are users scrolling down below the fold where your really important information is?

There is a good list of heat map software suppliers (free and paid) here: https://www.testing-web-sites.co.uk/2013/01/23/20-heatmap-tools-for-testing-your-websites-usability/. Armed with this data you can start making changes based on the way real users’ interact with your website, taking away the guess work.

5. Create goals

If you’re tracking actions on your website (i.e. you want to know more than just the total number of page views), you should set up goals. Goals are the actions you want your visitors to perform on your website e.g. a sale, length of time on site, page views per visit, download, form completion etc. Each time a user completes a Goal, a conversion is logged in your Google Analytics account. You can also give a Goal a monetary value, so you can see how much that conversion is worth to your business.

Your goals will help you give you insights into areas such as which are your main converting traffic sources, which organic search keywords send you customers, which page has the most effective sign up form and much more.

Start by asking yourself what is the purpose of your website? Do you sell goods and you want to track sales, or do you write a blog and want people to view multiple pages? Once you’ve identified your objectives you can set up relevant goals to track your website’s performance.

Goals you can set up include:

• Making a booking or a sale
• Newsletter sign-ups
• Lead generation
• Trial sign ups
• Account creation
• Video plays and duration (when combined with event tracking)

Setting up goals in Google Analytics

Click on Admin and you’ll find ‘Goals’ are set up at the ‘View (profile)’ level of your account. Give your goal a name that is descriptive and will make sense in months to come (e.g. ‘Sale’ rather than ‘Goal 1’). Once you’ve specified the specific criteria for each goal (e.g. how many pages should be viewed), click “Create goal” and you’re done.

Goal funnels

Goal funnels allow you to see exactly how many people travel through your website towards your goals and at what stage they leave the process. A common use for this feature is to set up a funnel for your payment confirmation page to see how many people move through each towards your payment page.