Ok I know it’s not big and not clever and I really should get out more, but I have to confess I have become addicted to Google Analytics.
Ever since I tagged all of my website pages with the wondercode, I am finding that everyday I need a fix. If I don’t get a certain number of hits a day it affects my mood. A big hit and I feel uplifted. I don’t count the bounces (the one page wonders) but when I get a good number of pageviews, I feel slightly comforted to know, that in this lonely world of sole traderdom, that people are looking at my website.
Google Analytics can tell me not only how many pages, how long they spend looking and where they are from - but also how they reached my website. I can tell which keywords (and landing pages) in organic searches have sent traffic my way or whether they came direct or via a referring site (eg. I had no idea someone had used some of my pics on Pinterest until I spotted it in the Analytics!). I can tell which pages are the most popular, whether they used a mobile device and if they are a returning visitor, when they last looked in.
There are so many useful stats I can record and of course it’s free, easy to use and so hard to resist. I recently updated my website (using some of the info I had gathered to inform the content and changes) and so now I am watching avidly to see how much impact this has. Sometimes, and this really is sad, I put on the live streaming of visits - seeing the pages being watched and where they go as it happens.
What I can’t tell is who ‘they’ actually are - the competition checking me out, people just looking for ideas or real prospective clients. And of course none of it means anything really until they actually make contact!
Is it just me or is anyone else addicted?
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Replies
I totally get what you mean Jenny.
I went to see the new wed designer today which was to give and take some information from a simple ONE hour meeting, four hours later, I left with the biggest list of updates required to take the grounds division to the heights the main business is for the Analytics to work, its totally addictive although as you've already mentioned, you can't see who your viewers are so you don't know if its the competition or prospective clients looking. It would be great to know, although, now I know this much, I'm going to ask the office to provide a relevant question for new clients as to how they found us.
Great though eh Jenny
Not only you Jenny, don't worry! I love stats, me.
Mine are provided as part of the hosting package and I often check them out, particularly the 'Demographics'. Fascinating (and frustrating) how you can get hits from all round the world, yet so few locally. :(
I barely get any visitors (5-10 a day) so I'm not too bothered about it all. Marketing and prospecting is the last thing on my mind right now but should it become something I look at again I do enjoy seeing what's going on.
Ultimately, page views means nothing, it's emails/phone calls that does.
Hi guys, glad I'm not totally alone - may have hammed up the 'addiction' for comic effect - but just to highlight what a useful and free business/marketing tool it is. And yes a little compulsive.
Woodster definitely always worth asking 'how did you find us' question and Ian you can probably do more things to hep improve your profile locally, but we all get weird random global searches ( I got a few from Brazil with my name nude as a search term?!) and spam.
As a garden designer - without the security of regular maintenance contracts or repeat business - attracting new clients is ongoing work. I need to keep my eye on the ball at all times, whether I am busy or not, to ensure that I have work lined up for the future and prospective clients can find me. With huge competition in London, and without the budget for advertising or expensive SEO companies, I have to do as much as I can of everything marketing-wise myself. So Google Analytics is a great free tool for understanding how clients find you and helping improve/focus future marketing efforts. For anyone who does not yet have it installed on their website, I thoroughly recommend it.
On a side note and maybe one for the stats heads - here's a few figures (and yes, I'm sure others have bigger than mine, it's not a competition!) to not only illustrate the kind of info the Analytics can provide - but also to demonstrate what a great vehicle LJN is.
Whilst a regular LJN user, I do not post that often and probably others have much higher LJN profile or accumulated content. But looking at my Non-bounce stats so far this year (from Jan), Landscape Juice Network has accounted about 50% of all my referral traffic - and about 3% of my total traffic.
My Non-bounce stats so far this year (from Jan), Landscape Juice Network has referred:
110 Visits with a total of 2362 pageviews. Average pageviews 22 per visit, average time spent on site 3 mins 25 secs. 95% were new visits.
The visits came from 26 different referral paths or LJN pages - top 3: 'Looking for a landscaper, garden designer, gardener... (enhanced listing), old forum topics on slatted fence panels/venetian panels and my profile page - with the rest spread over various posts, comments and photos I have posted.
Given that LJN is UK based it is not surprising that many of these visits were not local to me (over 70 UK localities) and many would have been from other LJN members so not necessarily potential clients. But it does illustrate the kinds of info you can monitor from Google Analytics - aswell as the power of LJN! Maybe time to sign up for that enhanced listing to help your business (and help with LJN running costs at the same time)
Jenny
PS. Thanks to LJN user from Belfast for having a good look (67 pages) at my website via this post earlier this evening !
It's worth using a couple of stats packages as they all show the info in differing ways and some do it much better than others. If you want a very easy to use and understand package try http://getclicky.com it's fab...