Understanding Analytics

With so many options out there, it’s easy to get lost in numbers and trends and meta and data and everything else in between.

What is important to look at?

That’s a great question, and although it is unique to your goals (NOTE: you really need to have your goals down first, or the analytics are just a waste of your time), here’s a few things that I like to pay attention to and why.

Where do the users go and what do they do?

What is the flow of user activity? Are they all leaving on a certain page, or after a certain amount of time? Are there any favourite pages?

Follow-Up: Are the favourite pages optimized for activity? Meaning, do you have a call to action on those pages to reach your end goal?

Where has the feedback been?

Not only do I delve into visitors on the website, but look beyond at the social spectrum and see which posts were ‘liked’ the most, and on which networks.

This gives us a great idea of what people are reacting to and which platforms are effective for which messages.

What did the dollars do?

Both spent and brought in. What and where are the sales? What was spent to get there?

Understanding where your money is coming from and where it is going, is so very important.

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This is to help you start thinking about your analytics in a new way – a way that is useful for you.