The Internet is no longer just a novelty, and it’s difficult for small businesses to get by without having some sort of competitive web presence. While this web presence allows small businesses to collect data about their visitors, the real power of this data comes from how it is analyzed, and how the results of that analysis are used to improve in the future. There are various programs, both free and paid, that allow small businesses to effectively analyze that information. Here we’re going to take a look at how this analysis can help small businesses grow.
Knowing Where You’re Getting Your Traffic
All else being equal, an increase in quality traffic is a direct increase in the amount of money your small business is making. Once you know where your traffic is coming from, you can take measures to get more of it by working on your weaknesses, as well as reinforcing your strengths. For example, if you get a lot of web traffic from search engines, but don’t get much traffic from type-ins, which indicate your popularity by word of mouth, then it might be time to step up your advertising in areas other than the Internet.
Know What Readers Are Trying to Find
Analytics applications tell you a lot about the people who come to your website. By examining the demographic information of your visitors, and looking at how they made it to the website you’re analyzing, you can extrapolate to figure out what sorts of things they would be looking for by coming to your website. If there is a demand by some group of people who are coming to your website, and that demand isn’t being filled, you can guide your small business through the process of creating a new product or service to take advantage. This type of money-making maneuver isn’t possible without good analytics information.
Using Keyword Tracking to Fill Demand
On the most basic level, the general formula for using a web property to generate money or sales leads is to have traffic, know what that traffic wants, and provide a product or service to meet that demand. The number one piece of information you can have about a visitor is what keywords they were searching for when they found your site. This not only tells you what they are interested in, but what the user’s intent was. If this is unclear, then consider the difference of intent from a user searching for “what is a widget” as opposed to someone searching for “buy widgets”. In both cases, they are clearly interested in widgets, but the intent of the second user is much more likely to generate a sale.
Cost and Effectiveness
There are a number of free analytics services available on the Internet, including Google Analytics. The problem with such free programs is that they do not usually offer up-to-date information in terms of hours and minutes, instead presenting data on a daily basis about the previous day. While that information is useful, it can also be useful to have current data up to just the past few minutes to examine how market conditions and news are changing the website visitor patterns of your small business. Some paid options that provide more detailed types of analysis include Clicky, Chartbeat, Woopra, ClickTale, and Optify. It’s up to you as a small business owner to decide which of these tools is best for what your small business is trying to achieve.
Analytics and Social Media
Measuring analytics with social media is a bit different than other forms of online analytics. Instead of focusing on the short term, social media analytics are more focused on ‘intangible’ signals such as quality of relationships, experience, and user-generated content for your business in the social media world. An aspect to monitor of your social media experience is to turn online conversations into true, actionable intelligence that informs business decisions. For any small business social media can be a great tool to measure the effectiveness of your business to your consumers.
About the author : Nicole has been blogging about business for 3 years, she currently contributes to sites regarding how companies can utilize heatmap software and business microblogging.
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