Unlocking the Power of Website Data: Strategies for Small Business Owners

What Data is Important to a Small Business

Your small business has a website and if you have it setup to collect web traffic data, then you have analytics that are important to you.

If your website is not collecting any information on the web traffic it receives, please reach out to me so we can fix that for you!

Now we can see all the data on the Google Analytics page for your website. But, what is the most important data to you and to your small business?

You likely see Real-Time data, an audience overview breakdown, how you acquire the traffic to your site, even what device the user is on and a few more things on the analytics homepage.

Depending on the small business that you have will indicate what data are important to you.

For me, I like to tell clients that we need to just see the basics, checking off boxes as we go. (look back in time at least 30 days)

• Is your website getting any activity? Find users, sessions, session duration, bounce rate
• Where is the traffic coming from? Find source/medium, referrals and advertising
• What page(s) is getting the most attention? Find all pages, pageviews, %exit

If you can understand what I call the "basics", then some of the first pieces of a strategy can be built.

Key Metrics and What The Heck They Even Mean

Acquisition of Traffic

Users.

The number of users that initialized a session during the selected data range.

Extra Nerd: "New Users" can be seen as the number of FIRST TIME users during that timeframe. Here is how Google figures that out.

Sessions.

A "session" is attached to any visitor to your site. Sessions = total number of visitors. When you see a healthy amount of sessions, then you can feel pretty good that your website is "out there" somewhere for people to consume.

Avg. Session Duration.

Some metrics are easily read based on the naming convention. Avg. Session Duration = average amount of time each session was on your site.

Bounce Rate.

The one that might haunt the new guy in the analytics account. Simply put, a session that contains only 1 page and has no interaction. A bounced session lasts just 0 seconds.

Pages/Session.

This will tell you how many different pages that a user visited while on your website. Whether browsing products or reading content, this can be a very good number to keep an eye on. Extra Nerd: The higher the #, usually the longer the session duration.

How To Use All The Data to Improve your Website

Now you are going through your Google Analytics account and are starting to see all the numbers gather up each month. What do you do with that?

1. Watch for patterns - if the traffic graph starts to dip, investigate to find out why. Did a specific traffic channel drop off that month? Is there something broken on your website? One of the most common mistakes that I see is an update to the website that is not verified after publishing. The main navigation is broken, or another link is headed towards a 404 page.
2. If you see users going up from your social channels, then you have a pretty good indicator there that traffic channel is doing well for your business. Focus more time on that customer base with engagement and additional posts when relevant.
3. Do you see your session duration on the rise? This might indicate that previous updates to your website pages are being consumer more by users on the site. OR, depending on the type of business, this could indicate that users are not able to find the information they need to make a decision. It's tricky, but with further investigation the correct answer can be found.
4. In most cases, comparing at least 90 days of traffic to the previous period will tell a pretty solid story. Compare previous year data when deciding on larger website changes, enhancements, etc.

Test Small Tweaks and Optimize from There

Most of my clients inquire about the recommended modifications for their website. I approach this query with a high degree of importance and always seek to gather data before offering any suggestions. Data-driven recommendations have consistently produced the most favorable outcomes.

While there may be industry best practices to consider, the majority of the business websites I consult with have already integrated those elements.

Initially, it's advisable to implement small modifications to your website and closely monitor the analytics. In today's dynamic online environment, it's best to avoid making significant changes that may disrupt the delicate balance of search engine algorithms.

Best Practice and Examples That Worked

I worked with a small business that wanted to increase organic traffic to a website. That was it. Increase traffic. Not sales, not leads, just traffic.

This project is easier for me because the company understood the power of having people on the website reading content that was relevant to a search they just performed.

After writing 4-5 HELPFUL blog posts and having them published to the website, the traffic increase was noticed within 60-90 days. These articles were answering pain points for the customers.

You aren't giving away the farm when you provide information to the customer they actually need to help make an informed decision about your business.

Now that we had the articles posted and some organic traffic flowing to them, we moved to getting the content out on social in little pieces to bring in the traffic from those platforms.

Comments on social were quickly engaged with and in fact, provided even more content topics for next time. Customers loved the interaction and rewarded the business with more followers and traffic to the website.

Your Data is Valuable, Contact Me To Learn How to Use It

If you are not sure how to view the data, what it all means or how you can use it, let's chat. Thanks for subscribing to my data brain dump :)