We live and breath digital marketing and for us analytics is at the centre of all the decisions we make. But if digital analytics is not your main job then you can be excused for not having a full appreciation for why analytics is important.

Put simply, owning a website without analytics is like flying a light aircraft in the fog with no instruments. You have no idea how well your doing!

There is a wealth of data available about the way that users interact with your website. Some people would argue there is too much data available but what’s great is that you can use analytics to answer all manner of questions about the performance of your website.

Many website owners just want to know how many visitors come to their website and we can certainly answer that but you may also want to know about the quality of these visitors. What are their main interests? What search terms brought them to your website?

Would you like to know which of your website pages makes people want to stay and which pages want to leave. All that information is available too and more. 

Your Website Needs Goals

This is all just scratching the surface of what possible. Every website should have a goal, usually several. This can be a phone call, an enquiry form or eCommerce purchase. If set up correctly we can determine which of your marketing channels performs the best and give the best return on investment. Its worth spending few minutes setting this up.

Another way of thinking about Analytics is as a diagnostic tool. By connecting it to your website, you have the opportunity to determine why your website is not performing. A website needs to attract traffic but it also needs to convert traffic into leads or purchases.

Finally,  there’s really no reason not to install analytics. Its free to create an account and it can be set up very quickly and easily.

Take a look at analytics.google.com to get started and if you get stuck, you know where to find help.