Try split testing for better website tracking.
Remembering that we can’t improve what we don’t measure should make it very clear that website tracking is a critical component of any online business.
How do we do that effectively? Well, we examine three approaches below that should give you a great base to work from to monitor your website.
1. Install Google Analytics
Google Analytics is free to install. It allows you to check the number of visitors and where they’re coming from, as well as how long the visitors are spending on your page and what your conversion rates are.
You can set goals in Google Analytics – for example if you are after a 15% conversion rate from your visitors for your opt-in offer, it can let you know how close to this target you are.
By gathering this information you can begin to understand if you need to be doing more to improve your numbers; once you get used to the numbers, over time you can compare the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns and approaches.
2. Split Testing
Visual Website Optimizer is software that allows you to run tests to measure the effectiveness of different approaches with your website marketing.
For example you may want to check the conversion rates of two pages, one using plain text and the other using video; the software allows you to create two different versions of your site and to split traffic between them.
This should help you find methods of increasing time spent on page, increasing conversions and reducing the “bounce” rate away from your page.
There is currently a free trial version available to test a thousand visitors and a monthly $49 option for small business, allowing testing for up to 10,000 visitors a month.
3. Keep Spreadsheets
A lot can be achieved by simply keeping spreadsheets of your web site numbers.
For example, you can keep a monthly record of unique visitors, gross sales, the number of different buyers, your up-sell figures (if appropriate), your conversion total and your average sale; once you have this information you can work out your RPU – Revenue Per Unique (Visitor).
This is a particularly important figure as it tells you exactly how much each visitor to your site is worth. If you are considering running paid-for advertising campaigns then this helps you work out what you can afford to spend to generate the extra traffic, based on the average figure you will get back from each new visitor.
There is no substitute for knowing your web site “numbers” and using them to fine tune your present and future marketing strategies to generate more leads and improve conversions.
Knowing your base figures and what constitutes a successful or unsuccessful campaign will really help your future efforts.
Your website should be the centrepiece of your online business and website tracking should be an integral part of your marketing plan. Learn more about how to do this and plenty more through the Competition Crusher workshop. Just click here to find out about it.