Take a moment and think about the last journey you made in your car. Think about all the actions you took without much planning or consideration – actions which were driven by your subconscious or are simply part and parcel of your driving experience. Actions such as checking your mirrors, braking at traffic lights, popping your wipers on when the rain began to fall, are all actions that are second nature to you and the driving experience.
Now think about the amount of time you normally spend checking your fuel gauge and judging whether there is enough petrol is in the tank to get you through your upcoming journey. It’s just a subconscious glance whilst you’re sure you have half a tank or more… but things do get a little more edgy when you’re driving with less than a quarter of a tank…
Your car’s fuel gauge determines so much about how and where you can travel. What would it be like if this essential indicator was removed from your car? Even though you’d THINK there was enough petrol for your journey, at the back of your mind paranoia would sweep through, as you try to remember exactly WHEN you last filled up… and whether the journey ahead is doable.
This, alas, isn’t a publicity message on behalf of a breakdown service.
Think of your website as your car and your analytics package as your instrument panel, where that all important fuel gauge is situated. Modern cars are fitted with warning lights to tell you exactly when your petrol tank is running low, when your engine is overheating, whether your seatbelt’s fastened and tones ring out for a variety of other reasons.
Website analytics offer you and your business the same level of ‘indicators’ about the performance of your own website. Your analytics package tells you when you’re running low on web traffic. It alerts you to errors within your site and gives you a complete overview of how your website is performing. Just like your car, your website has cost your business a lot of money. An expenditure which is directly accountable. Your car is there to take you from A to B. Your website, to develop new business and keep your existing clients up-to-date.
Why wouldn’t you want to KNOW how your website is performing, rather than rely on guesswork? This is a question not only to marketing and sales teams, but also to business owners and directors.
Each and every day there will a piece of information extracted from your analytics package which can help build and develop your business:
- a link to your business from an industry forum
- a quality new traffic-generating ranking within Google
- an indicator of the search criteria used by your business’ prospects
- a mention of your business (good or bad) on a social media network (twitter, facebook)
The list goes on….
- If you’ve been told by your IT department or web design team that an analytics package is ‘too difficult‘ to integrate - it isn’t.
- If you’ve too little time to interrogate analytics – amend your daily schedule.
- If you don’t see analytics as an integral part of your web proposition - rethink your strategy.
Your website exisits to earn your business money, not to showacase the web designer’s skills or, worse, what a ‘fun bunch’ you are in your office Christmas Party photos. It’s there to earn you new clients and build revenue streams for you and your business.
Keep an eye on the dials of your website and begin to understand just how essential traffic monitoring is for your business…. and more importantly when you need to fuel up your online marketing strategy. Don’t rely on guesswork and above all, don’t leave your business running on empty.
