Though developing a successful website is no easy feat, understanding the behavior and engagement of your visitors can make it easier. After all, you don’t want to invest time and resources into a redesign or improvement strategy that misses the mark.
That’s where website traffic analysis comes in.
By digging into the data, you can get a clear picture of what’s working, what’s not and where your efforts are best focused. From identifying popular pages to monitoring bounce rates, there are a host of tools and techniques that can help you make data-driven decisions about your website.
In this article, we’ll discuss the steps to properly analyze website traffic and how it can inform your next move, as well as discuss the importance of a good inbound link strategy for effective SEO.
Set Up Analytics Software
The first step in analyzing website traffic is to set up an analytics software. Google Analytics is a popular choice and it’s free. Once you’ve set up your account, you will need to add the tracking code to your website. Depending on the platform or CMS, it may be as simple as copying the code and pasting it into the header, or you may need to install a plugin or extension
Identify Key Metrics
After setting up your analytics, the next step is to identify the key metrics you want to track. These could include the number of visitors, time spent on your website, bounce rate, referral sources and more. Key metrics will differ depending on your website type and what you want to achieve, so it’s important to identify those that are relevant to your goals.
Analyze Key Metrics
Once you’ve identified your key metrics, you can begin analyzing them. This will help you understand how visitors are engaging with your website, where they’re coming from and what content they’re interested in. For example, if you notice that visitors are spending very little time on a certain page, you may need to revamp the content or layout to make it more engaging.
On the other hand, if you see that visitors are exiting your website at an alarming rate, you may need to investigate whether your website is slow to load or if there are any technical issues that may be affecting the user experience. Remember, if you’re drawing traffic, that’s good; and if you’re getting it from mostly one source, it’s not necessarily bad and can be indicative of growth potential.
Make Informed Decisions
By analyzing website traffic and weighing efforts against results, you can make informed decisions on how to improve your website. For example, let’s say you notice the majority of your traffic is coming from social media platforms. You may want to consider investing more time and resources into your social media strategy to capitalize on this traffic source. PPC (pay-per-click) and social ad campaigns, along with sharing native content, are great ways to divert eyes back to your site through social media channels.
Alternatively, if you notice very little traffic is coming from search engines, you may need to focus on improving your SEO strategy to increase visibility and attract more organic traffic.
The Importance of Inbound Link Strategy
Part of a good SEO program is building a solid inbound link strategy. Inbound links are links from other websites that point to your website. Search engines view inbound links as “votes of confidence” for your website, which means the more quality inbound links you have, the higher your website will rank in search engine results pages (SERPs). Most analytic reports will include information related to inbound links.
A strong inbound link strategy involves creating high-quality content that other websites will want to link to, as well as actively seeking out opportunities for link building. This could include reaching out to other websites to ask for links, guest posting on relevant blogs and participating in online communities and forums.
How DOJO Creative Can Help
As part of DOJO Creative’s website redesign services, our team can help clients analyze website traffic and make data-driven decisions. Using tools such as Google Analytics, we assess site architecture, visitor habits and identify problem points that may be hindering user experience or driving visitors away.
Our team dives into details such as entrance and exit pages, bounce rates, referrer URLs and whether visitors arrived directly, through a search or social media to truly understand how users are interacting with the site. By utilizing SEO-rich analysis, we can identify keywords and trends that drive traffic and conversions. Armed with this information, we can strategize and tailor a website redesign that enhances the user experience and drives results for your business.
Are you mulling over a website redesign for your business or starting from scratch? Have a question about augmenting your current site’s performance but not sure where to start? We want to hear about it.
Contact DOJO Creative partner Doug Elder today at 574-276-4998 or doug@letsgodojo.com to schedule a consultation and learn more about our services!