Handbook

Is your website working? Just because the button is turned on, doesn’t mean it’s actually connecting to your audience. To be sure your website is actually working the way you want, remember two words: Google Analytics.

If you haven’t heard of it…why? Google Analytics (GA) is an excellent monitoring tool developed by Google (hence the fancy name) that allows you to see exactly what your website is doing. You can tell how many people are coming to your site, when, from where, to where and how (search engine or direct). You can tell who’s a newbie or loyal follower, what they’re coming for and what they’re leaving from. You can find out what devices are being used (computer vs. mobile), what operating system is being used, even what browser is most popular and so on. You can pretty much find out anything you want to know about what's happening on your site.

The nice thing about GA is it’s easy to use and it’s free (provided your web provider has created an account for you). Depending on what your business is and the goals you want to achieve, a simple GA review is all you need. The difficult thing about it (initially) is it can be overwhelming. To start, focus on these 5 areas:

Visits: How many people are actually coming to your website, how many pages they’re looking at and how long are they spending on your site?

New vs. Returning: Is your site engaging enough to have return visitors? You’ll find out here.

Traffic Sources Overview: Where is everyone coming from? If you’re not getting any referrals from search engines, it’s very likely your website isn’t configured properly. And if you don’t have social media referrals, you’re missing out. Get on that.

Content Drilldown: What is the most popular content on your site? You’ll be able to determine that here. Find out what’s working and what’s not and you can tailor future content for it.

Visitor Trending: How do your visitors act on the site? How long are they on there and when are they most active? Find out why they’re coming and, just as importantly, why they’re leaving.

Honourable mention(s):

Mobile: What types of devices are being used to find your site? Have you developed your site to accommodate those devices?

In-Page Analytics: On any given page what are people clicking on? You can tailor your content (or the site itself…if you’ve got a good relationship with your developer) to the behaviours you’re seeing from your visitors on every single page.