Below are some of the first questions you should be asking when identifying missed opportunities on your website.
How do most of your visitors/customers find you?
Click: Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels
This report tells you what percentage of traffic comes from Google, paid advertising, social, email marketing and so on, followed by how many sales each channel makes you. Consider how much time you spend working on each channel, compared to how much revenue it’s bringing in. This simple report can give you an idea of what marketing activities you should be dedicating more time to.
Are there any pages with loads of traffic but a high bounce rate?
Click: Behaviour > Site Content – and then sort by the Bounce Rate column
A ‘bounce’ is when a visitor lands on your website and then leaves immediately without doing anything. Probably because the page didn’t contain what they expected to find, or it didn’t engage them. If a page’s bounce rate is more than 80%, it’s worth investigating if there’s an opportunity to improve it. Especially if it’s getting loads of traffic; this shows that you’re either attracting a load of visitors who don’t match your typical audience, or you’re missing an opportunity to engage lots of potential customers!
What is your most popular blog post? And does it win you any customers?
Click: Behaviour > Site Content – and then sort by the Page Views column
A good online store blog should:
- Allow customers to understand more about your brand and the way you think
- Give them helpful information about choosing/caring for a product, particularly if the product is high-value, complicated or in a crowded market
- Share relevant ideas and advice that would enhance your customers’ lifestyle. By ‘relevant’ we mean in connection with your product or your brand’s values
There should be signs you can look for in this report that your blog is fulfilling its purpose. Check the ‘page value’ column, check how long people spend on the page, and if you’re tracking newsletter sign-ups, check how many of those are attributed to your posts.
Look for any blog posts that have a long visit duration, or do lead to sales – try adding a newsletter sign-up box, or including links to relevant products (don’t be pushy about it though!).
Sidenote: if you want to improve your Google Analytics knowledge, there’s a free course in it on Google Skillshop. You get a certificate and everything!
If you have any questions about these ideas or want help interpreting your Google Analytics data, contact our marketing team for some free & impartial advice.