What is analytics?

Web analytics may refer to the tools, processes or results for studying web-related statistics. The most famous web traffic analytics tool online is Google Analytics. Google Analytics can provide various statistics relating to the volume of website visitors including where they come from, which pages the visit and what they do after a visit. Google also constantly rolls out new features to make data-related insights more in-depth.

Google Analytics is mostly advised to website owners who are running their own AdWords campaign. The tool monitors web traffic via advertisements. It can also determine the returns of your AdWord advertising investments. Simply, it can identify if the campaign is earning and by how much.

Results are presented as statistical data that can be confusing at times especially for first-time users. Nevertheless, once you understand what the aggregate data mean, you’ll make more sense of what the results can do to improve your business in general.

How Google Analytics works?

Google Analytics churns out plenty of data and reports. However, here are some of the most important ones.

Traffic chart

The traffic chart is the first thing you’ll notice as it should be. The chart is actually the most important, giving website owners an overall visual overview of the website is currently performing traffic-wise. It can be adjusted based on specific period or dates and compare the charts from different periods. With this, it would be easier to know why your site performed more optimally on a specific period. You may then repeat or improve a successful campaign.

Site usage

Site usage breaks down the traffic information into digestible chunks. There are a total of six subsections. However, there are only three that can provide you with the data that you need.

1) Visitors

This section provides the total number of users visiting your website. You can determine whether the website is increasing in terms of popularity and conversion.

2) Page views

This section details the total number of times that a particular web page is accessed. You can then determine why that web page attracts more visitors than other pages and strategize accordingly.

3) New visitors

This section gives the total number of new visitors. This is critical to know whether your website in increasing in terms of reach or not.

Each subsection has its own report based on countries. This is specifically critical for those websites that intend to or is currently targeting the international market. For instance, the website owner may choose to provide language options based on from which country the visitors came from. The report also provides information whether the traffic is acquired through which channels. The three channels are:

• direct access,
• search engine query, and
• link.

The information will be helpful in further optimizing the website.

Thereby, analytics and specifically Google Analytics is an essential tool in guiding and gauging the success of websites. However, you can only make sense of the data provided if you know what relevance it will have to your SEO campaign. If it means going through each chart and report, then so be it if this is the only way to make the SEO efforts more successful.

Image credit: Google.co.uk

The post SEO Basics: How to Make Sense of Analytics appeared first on Internet Marketing Reach.

STEP ZERO – Understand the target market

A major step, you need to get to know your target market. Understand their pain points. If you have to conduct surveys and interviews then so be it. You can even go the extra mile to list websites that your market is exposed to. Build a scenario of the typical online experience of your market.

Some questions worth answering are:

• Who are you?
• Why are you using our products?
• How did our products/services improve your life?
• Do you consider other products/services? Why?

The questions can uncover the recent trends in your niche that analytics cannot reveal. The biggest problem in designing landing page is they it doesn’t truly reflect who the page is for. It doesn’t directly reveal the level of online exposure the page is created for. This is the very first thing that SEO specialists must understand – the level of appeal of the landing page is not universal.

Remember that landing page design is not a game that SEO companies in the Philippines are battling to win over. Landing pages manifest themselves as opportunities to tap into the conscious decision-making of the prospects. A landing page is a venue to connect with and communicate value to the prospects. Accept that the connection is on the prospects’ terms and not yours, a necessary step in making better landing pages.

By virtue of customer development, you can devise a simple questionnaire so your landing page will resonate with the needs and wants of future traffic. This is the secret to designing a landing page that follows the expectations of the target market, thereby reducing friction it takes for a prospect to convert.

STEP ONE – Set up actionable goals

Google Analytics is an indispensable tool in the SEO world. Metrics provide actionable insights. As simple as it may seem, by analytics tend to intimidate and overwhelm even the experts. Actionable analytics are critical in creating highly-optimized landing pages. Making the most of the analytics is the secret.

Conversion goals need not be quantitative. In fact, only a few experts know the use of action-completed goals. An example is the total number of pages a user visited on your website. Google Analytics can be set up to reflect less than, equal to or greater than a specified number of page visited. Evidently, the goal is mapping out landing page conversion goals based on the performance data.

STEP TWO – Match the ad message with the landing page

Ad copies and landing pages must be synergized. If you already have landing pages, check the bounce rates on such. If the bounce rates are too high and the conversion rates are too low, then there is a message mismatch.

Next, check the ad copies directly pointing to which landing pages receiving the highest CTRs (click-through rates). Are they using the same language and voice? Are the images similar or synchronized? If NO and NO are your answers, then your landing pages are destined to fail. Apologies.

The reason? The landing pages do not correspond to the ad messages. Nine in 10 users expect the same headlines and images when they click the ad. Most feel ungrounded when they land on a totally different page. They will look for the headline that actually grabbed their attention, generally speaking.

Here’s a bonus: Users expect the same keywords to be apparent on the landing page as these are on the ad copy. As opposed to creating a landing page and having loosely targeted ads pointing to it, create targeted pages that focus on a group of related keywords.

Evidently, any digital marketer cannot do the first and second steps without a good grasp of who the target market really is. Next, we will discuss the importance of first impression, emotional resonance and value proposition.

Source: Search Engine Journal | MOZ | ConversionXL

The post Steps in Optimizing a Landing Page (Part 1) appeared first on Internet Marketing Reach.