Superior Web Performance Begins With Analytics

The IT guys are mumbling things you don't understand, the marketing folks are pushing hard for more sales, advertising budgets are falling under the knife, and your company's web site is under the gun to carry a bigger load

So the fingers start pointing and the ideas start flying: online promotions, graphic redesign, a "fresh look", new content, SEM, SEO, organic search, PPC, and other buzz words you've never even heard of.

What should you do to improve leads, sales, and your web site's performance?

Start with web metrics, the statistics that are compiled of your web visitors. You may have a program with your hosting company (some good, some not so), Google Analytics (free and good), or paid Analytics programs.

But, and it's a big BUT, web metrics are only useful IF YOU READ AND ANALYZE them on a regular basis.

That's why we call them "analytics".

Who should read them? Who should analyze them? Any manager whose performance is positively or negatively affected by web performance. Marketing and Sales VP's, CEO's - Sure. But there's plenty of other people in your organization who should be involved as well.

How often? A minimum of monthly, more frequently for sales oriented sites. For ecommerce sites, almost daily.

The problem, of course, is not simply reading them. It's understanding them, and it can be confusing. It is, for example, pretty easy to get up to speed on "core" web stats: Total Visits, Page Views, Pages/Visit, New Visits.

But there's more value in understanding Landing Pages, Bounce Rates,Paid Visitor Source, Free Search Visitors, Time on Specific Pages, Exit Pages, and Navigation Analysis.

Taken page by page, and measured over different time periods (week, month, year) will yield invaluable insights into your web visitors behavior. That's analytics!

Couple these insights with your company's specific goals for your web site, and a clear blueprint for future action (content, conversion, redesign, graphic look and feel, and web sales) will also emerge.

Superior web performance begins with statistics/metrics and ends with analytics. Regularly dive into analytics, and watch your web site performance soar.