Most people don't find analytics to be a particularly engaging read. Google Analytics is installed on the website, and every so often it gets checked. What's being checked isn't really clear, but the numbers keep appearing, so that's good right?

Web analytics have been a blessing and a curse for the average business owner. While you have more data collected automatically than ever before, it can be harder to really tell what matters. Even worse, the numbers never all move in the same direction. One week traffic is up but pageviews are down, the next week a blog post written 6 months ago was the most visited page. What does it all mean?

Looking at the numbers like this can be a frustrating experience. More visitors may or may not be a good thing. You'll never know unless you learn more about them. That's where we often start with clients - There are people coming to the website, but is it helping your business at all?

That's why we like to work with some metrics that Google Analytics doesn't count - Leads and Sales.

 

Companies with a traditional sales process can benefit significantly from educating customers on their website. But education isn't the end goal, filling out a form is. If you don't get some information from your site visitors, then you can't follow up with them. That's where designing your site and marketing around lead generation comes in. By giving your site visitors great offers, you can find out who is trying to learn more about you.

Targeting prospects when they are still in the information gathering phase is key. At this stage in the game, you are able to provide them with lots of information, and clarify how what you offer would be able to help. Setting up a consultation at this stage can pay dividends down the road.

Once you have a clear method of converting visitors into leads on your website, then it's worth exploring how specific numbers can impact that. If you use a tool like Hubspot, you can track daily how many leads are coming in, what pages bring them in, and which leads convert the most. High traffic that doesn't convert just means you're appealing to a lot of people who aren't your customer. Seeing how increased traffic affects leads and sales is what really makes a difference for your business.