Flying Blind is For Fools

I explain what the most important tool in online marketing is and why every single business website should use it.

To fly blind means to proceed without any sort of feedback, just trusting your good luck.  There are times in life you may need to do that, but not when it comes to your website.

Just like flying an airplane requires a cockpit full of instruments and gauges, running a successful online business requires careful monitoring of the visitors and actions on your website.

The majority of our clients are using analytics as an integral part of their business management, however once in a while I encounter surprisingly large websites that are not.

There are a number of tools that report on website traffic but the most popular is Google Analytics.  Fortunately Google Analytics is free, so every business should take advantage of the amazing insights it can provide.

Here are the five most important things you can learn from Google Analytics.

  1. Visitor Data – How many people visited your site, how long they stayed and how many pages they viewed.
  2. Sales Data – What products sold, how many orders were abandoned, what percentage of visitors become customers.
  3. Traffic Data –  What are your top sources of traffic and which sources create the most sales.
  4. Advertising performance – how effective are your ads at creating sales or leads?
  5. Marketing Data – Which keywords create the most traffic and most sales.

By using Google Analytics you move from guessing at what improves your sales to knowing what improves your sales.

This can have radical implications on the success of your business.

With real knowledge of what activities lead to greater sales you can optimize and grow your business with confidence.

It can also serve as an early warning system.  Either by alerting you to products or services that are becoming less popular or by identifying other performance issues.

In summary.

Running a website without Google Analytics is like trying to sail the Pacific in a yacht that doesn’t have a compass, a radio or satellite navigation!  You might get where you are going but the odds are against you.

Next steps.

If you don’t have Google Analytics installed yet and manage your own website then here’s the link to signup for the free Google Analytics account.
Click here.