How interesting is your new product? How many Facebook likes has it collected? Are sails up or down? Today everyone wants everyone talking about, and buying, their product.
And with heaps of social media analytics tools to choose from – Facebook’s Conversion Measurement and Page Insights platforms, Twitter, HootSuite, Sentiment 140, Salesforce Buddy Media and Adobe Social to name but a few – it’s difficult to know which one best suits your product.
But one tool that is completely free, easy to use and proven to be effective is Google Analytics. It tells you how people got to your website and what they did afterwards and something Natalie Ansell, an office manager at Galen Therapy Centre, has been using to good effect.
This week the Sussex-based dog treatment centre said it had increased website traffic by 49% after being told to use Google Analytics by digital marketing adviser Upd8 Technology.
"At first we worked hard to improve the rate by monitoring our traffic through the Google search engine," explained Ansell.
"Then we turned our attention to the second highest web traffic, which came via facebook. After making a few changes to words on the page we brought our bounce rate for the home page down by almost half. Now, by concentrating our efforts even more, including asking our website people to build in more functionality, we have a bounce rate reduced by a further 10 per cent on the home page and other pages now have a bounce rate which meets our target."
I asked the company for further tips to increase website traffic and they kindly responded with the below.
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1. Make sure you have clear navigation throughout your site
2. Attract and drive the right traffic to your page in the first place
3. Keep it fresh – ensure everything on your sit is up-to-date. It sounds obvious but it can seem a low priority task when you are busy.
4. Use social media to get the right traffic to your site.
5. Don’t go off on a tangent – visitors only want to read content if it’s relevant.
6. No annoying pop-ups
7. Consider splitting a complex page into two pages or more
8. Check what your website looks like on different devices. It may display well on your computer screen, but how does it look on a blackberry or an iPad.
9. Ask users and visitors (not your friends) what they think of the design /look and feel.
10. Make it easy for visitors to search for what they want on your site – adding a search box is one of the easiest ways.
