4 Reasons You Should Embrace Web Analytics as an Online Business
Running an online business in some cases may be an arduous task; from managing inventory, reaching out to customers/clients, making sure the SEO on your site is top notch enough to attract Google’s attention and rank higher on search results and in some cases handling accounting and payroll. However, one very important aspect of building and running an online business that most founders tend to ignore is Web Analytics.
We’ve been sharing articles upon articles on the value of UX design to your digital business, and how it can help you stay ahead of the pack, ward off competition and even increase your conversion rates, if you run an eCommerce business, we have a piece here on some tips to consider when designing your eCommerce site. However, it is important to note that while you employ exceptional UX design to keep your business ahead of the pack and constantly innovating, you must realize that lack of effective web analytics could hamper your development initiatives.
What is Web Analytics
In the simplest way we can describe it; web analytics are the data points you generate as an online business on the performance of your digital presence (website) and how your users interact with it. Web Analytics helps you decipher what is working on your digital platform based on user behavioral data, and helps you locate what you need to tweak and adjust to make things better. One of the most popular web analytics tool is obviously Google Analytics, but there are a host of other tools out there including Heap, Amplitude, Clicky etc.
In this piece, we’ll be sharing the value of Web Analytics, and 4 reasons we believe you should embrace Web Analytics as a digital business.
Four Reasons You Should Embrace Web Analytics as an Online Business
- MARKETING
One of the major reasons you should embrace web analytics is to deepen your marketing game and edge. Being an online business usually means you have access to a broader market base (usually the global market — except for China off course). Good analytics can help you find out where the majority of your audience comes from and who finds the most value in your product and service, thereby allowing you to retarget your digital marketing initiatives In that direction.
Web analytics doesn’t just tell you what physical location they come from, it also lets you know what digital platforms they come from, and which of these platforms is bringing in the most traffic for your online business. Since the majority of users will likely come from those following a link to your website rather than those typing in your URL in the address bar, having enough data about what digital platforms bring in the most traffic will be very useful in helping you to retarget and make your marketing strategy more effective.
2. WEB CONTENT DESIGN
Your website will usually have pages that are termed informative; these are pages where the major thing you put there could be product information, or any other information you feel may be needful to your visitors. Web Analytics can help you test how effective those pages are; how many people actually view those pages, and how long they stay there. If the bounce and churn rates on those pages are on the high side, it’s safe to say that the content on those pages may need to be redesigned or even shortened to yield better results.
3. IMPROVE CONVERSION RATES
There are many things that can make a user view your page and not convert; they may just be shopping around, hopping around or your product/service pricing was way out of their league. However, there are many websites where while the users are willing to convert, certain things on the checkout and core conversion pages discourage them; like this story from Brand 24 where they shared how an oversaturated registration page kept constantly discouraging users from converting. Web analytics can help you check those core and important pages to make sure everything is in order, and you’re making the most of the traffic being generated to your site.
There are also cases where people have reached a checkout process, only to discover that their preferred payment method wasn’t available, and they had to abandon the cart at that point to look for another player in that space with their preferred payment method to patronize. Web Analytics has the ability to help you check and verify if you have any challenges in your checkout process or any other process that may hinder visitors from converting or having a delightsome and seamless user experience when they visit your site.
4. MEASURE KPIs
A business that runs without data is a blind business, because an inability to access the right kind of contextual data will hinder your ability as a business to make well informed decisions. Web Analytics supplies the right kind of data that makes decision making easier, it also helps businesses measure and track the right kind of KPIs. So for instance, your performance KPI (Key Performance Indicator) as a business could be to reduce Churn rates from 40% to at least 20%, minus the fact that good analytics can help you find out the root cause of the churn rate on your website, it can also help you monitor how much progress you’re making in respect to reducing churn, and gives you a more accurate way to measure and monitor the KPIs that are most valuable to your business.
CONCLUSION
Building an online business doesn’t have to be an onerous task filled with multiple trials and errors, embracing web analytics can help your business measure and monitor the right kind of indicators, access the right kind of data, and ultimately make the most informed decisions based on relevant data to help you advance your business.
