So your website is up and running. You notice that your website traffic is finally gaining traction in terms of volume. 

By now, you would have a Google Analytics account set up for you to track your website analytics. While you see and acknowledge the numbers, you have difficulty deciphering what it means. How do you piece together the bits of information on Google Analytics? What insights have you uncovered about your website performance? 

If you are still struggling with questions like this, fret not. This article will provide you with the basic know-hows of website analytics. Our aim is to get you started on better understanding your website and the audience behaviour derived from it. 

What is Website Analytics?

Website analytics is the process of extracting valuable information from the data collection, reporting and analysis of the activities generated from the website. The main objective of web analytics is to provide you with the pattern of behaviour of the users on your website. This is so that you can acquire deeper insights on your overall website performance. 

Website Analytics

In order to understand the different ways that website analytics can affect your business, we will first have to go back to basics. Here, we share with you the relationship between the various metrics in website analytics to the different stages of the marketing funnel. 

via Digital Marketer

The marketing funnel (above) shows the processes involved in acquiring and retaining users on the website. Generally, successful brand marketing will generate high levels of awareness for your business. These will help to attract new visitors to the website. Once on your website, it is safe of assume that these new users are interested in your services. The new users will continue to evaluate your products and services to determine if it is suitable for them. Critical actions such as “Add to Cart” will help to distinguish the serious prospects from the casual users. Eventually, some of these prospects will become full-fledged paying customers. 

The funnel provides you with some guidance on the relevant goals / objectives and key metrics related to each stage of the marketing funnel. For example, in the awareness stage, the main objective would be to direct as much quality traffic to the website. Therefore, key website metrics to track are new users, sessions, bounce rate and average session duration. The ideal result is that bounce rate is kept low while the other metrics are kept as high and possible. This indicates that the users are spending time exploring the website. 

Website Analytics Application 

As you can see, you will be able to understand your overall website performance at a deeper level. Furthermore, by breaking it down into different stages, it will be easier to identify the weaker stages of the marketing funnel. For instance, you notice that new users are visiting your website. At the same time, the bounce rate is also high. This could indicate that the new users do not find your website relevant to them. You may want to conduct split testing to the content displayed in a bid to retain the users. 

In the new and updated funnel metrics, a new stage has been added below the conversion funnel. This stage can also be known as the post conversion phase. This refers to the process of how your existing pool of customers become repeat customers, and advocates of your business. We will further elaborate on the different stages below. 

via Digital Marketer

Awareness Phase (TOFU):

The awareness phase is equivalent to the top of the funnel (TOFU). In this phase, the key concern of most businesses would be to attract more new users to the website. Thus, a good metric to observe for the top of the funnel would be the number of direct new users.If your awareness campaigns are successful, you should be able to see improvements in the volume of new users visiting your website to find out more about you. 

Evaluation Phase (MOFU):

The evaluation phase is equivalent to the middle of the funnel (MOFU). In this phase, the key concern would be the capability and frequency of converting new users into leads. One way to measure this would be to assess the commitment factor of these leads. Commitment of users can be measured by evaluating the number of people subscribing, filling out a form, or even following you on social media. Additionally, if you are able to track the number of clicks on your CTA, you will be able to determine how well your content is doing in terms of generating interest in your users.

Conversion Phase (BOFU):

The conversion phase is equivalent to the bottom of the funnel (BOFU). In this phase, the key concern would be if the metrics chosen are able to provide insights on how well the users are converting into customers. This is the most critical stage because once you are able to get a prospective user to purchase something from you, the likelihood of that person buying again from you again is increased 10 folds. 

Post-Conversion Phase:

The post-conversion phase is illustrated with a circle, which represents a customer loop effect. The loop is indicative of a loyal customer base coming back to you multiple times. In this post-conversion phase, the main concern is in building customer loyalty by ensuring customer satisfaction. Key indicators of post-puchase on the website includes increase in your membership, traffic ROI, retention and customer lifetime value. 

Nonetheless, gathering information for this phase is a bit more difficult. This is because Google is unable to provide you with this information directly. However, loyal and satisfied customers are usually willing to share this information with you. This could be in the form of submitting their details in newsletters or forms. Another more direct approach for direct customer engagement includes reviews on social media platforms. Thus, this phase is unique such that the metric used may be found beyond your website analytics tool. 

Conclusion

When analysing your website performance, always try to align your marketing objectives to the different phases of the marketing funnel. From there, you can easily identify the most relevant metrics for you to track. A huge benefit of doing website analytics is to understand the customer behaviour on your website and tweak your website to address the common behaviours. This would allow your website to resonate better with your customers, simultaneously enhancing trust and building relationships for the long-run. 

Having difficulty identifying key insights that can help your business achieve success? Reach out and share with us more details about your business objectives. Let us share with you our expertise and guidance to help you attain the results that you desire.