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Understanding Your Online Audience Through Key Website Indicators

Understanding Your Online Audience Through Key Website Indicators

Released Tuesday, 30th April 2024
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Understanding Your Online Audience Through Key Website Indicators

Understanding Your Online Audience Through Key Website Indicators

Understanding Your Online Audience Through Key Website Indicators

Understanding Your Online Audience Through Key Website Indicators

Tuesday, 30th April 2024
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Episode Transcript

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1:03

As a business owner , being able to look at your

1:05

website's history and

1:07

trends is crucial to knowing

1:09

where you're going in your business . While

1:11

we shouldn't really obsess over the past

1:13

, being able to look at where we were

1:16

in our business can help us learn

1:18

and make the present day better and make sure

1:20

we're on the right track . In

1:22

this episode , we'll be diving into what

1:24

you should be reviewing regularly with your

1:26

website metrics , and why

1:28

so . This is going to be a little bit different than last week's

1:31

episode , where we talked about business

1:33

metrics . Now we're going to be talking about website

1:35

metrics . Welcome

1:37

to the e-commerce made easy podcast . I'm

1:39

your host , keri Saunders . When we started

1:42

this business , all I had was a couch , a laptop

1:44

and a nine-month-old my main goal To

1:47

help others . Now , with over 20 years in

1:49

the e-commerce building industry and even more

1:51

than that in web development , I have seen a lot

1:53

. I love breaking down the hard tech into

1:55

easily understandable bits to help

1:57

others be successful in their online business

1:59

. Whether you're a seasoned e-commerce veteran

2:01

or just starting out , you've come to the right place

2:04

. So

2:08

sit back , relax and let's dive into the world of e-commerce together

2:10

. Welcome back to this week's episode of the e-commerce made

2:12

easy podcast . So last week

2:14

, in episode 51 , we talked about

2:16

three key performance indicators in

2:19

your business that you should be tracking regularly

2:21

. These are mostly metrics

2:24

focused on cash and sales

2:26

in your business . Today , we're

2:28

driving into what are three key

2:30

website performance indicators that you

2:32

should be reviewing specifically

2:34

on your website using some analytic

2:36

software such as Google Analytics . Now

2:40

, if you listen to this episode in basically

2:42

real time or close to real time

2:44

and haven't already heard , google's

2:46

universal analytics data is

2:48

going to be deleted . All your data

2:50

is going to be deleted starting July 1st

2:52

of 2024 . This

2:54

is a bit of a big deal for many businesses

2:57

who have been around for a while , because they like

2:59

to look back , especially as established business

3:01

, look back at what their

3:03

history is on their website

3:05

, how much traffic's coming in , etc . So

3:08

I wanted to use this opportunity

3:11

to help you understand , as

3:13

you're growing and maybe you're already

3:15

a growing business , but you're not looking at these

3:17

metrics what should you really be

3:20

looking for it ? So , even if you're listening

3:22

past July 1st of 2024

3:24

, we're going to be looking at what you should

3:26

be looking at on your website

3:28

regularly and how we

3:30

can do that in a way to

3:32

help propel our business forward . Now

3:35

I know for some of you thinking

3:37

about looking at website metrics I get a lot of

3:39

feedback on this can sound super

3:42

scary or overwhelming . I have a lot

3:44

of customers and clients and business friends

3:46

tell me this all the time . I

3:48

just don't know what to look at , carrie . I

3:51

get so confused , I get so overwhelmed

3:53

. Those are the words they use all the time

3:55

when talking about looking at their website

3:57

analytics . But we're going to

3:59

be breaking things down and making them simple

4:02

. Plus , not tracking

4:04

these essential elements is pretty

4:06

much guaranteed to slow down

4:08

your business and your business growth , and

4:11

I know that we all want faster and better

4:13

business growth , so let's dive right in

4:15

, all right . So first

4:17

off , what are some of the key metrics

4:19

you should minimally keep an eye on and I'm only

4:21

going to go over three in this episode . These

4:24

are my top three that I think are really important . That if

4:26

you minimally look at these , it's going to go over three in this episode . These are my top three that I think are really important . That if you

4:28

minimally look at these , it's going to really

4:30

help you out . First off is

4:32

traffic volume . Then

4:34

next we're going to look at bounce rate and

4:36

what that is . And then , finally

4:38

, we're going to be looking at traffic sources , or traffic

4:41

acquisition as it is now called

4:43

in Google Analytics 4 . So

4:45

I'll be defining and getting to the details of what these

4:48

metrics mean in a few moments , but

4:50

I want you to keep in mind something

4:52

first For all of these

4:54

metrics , we want to look at trends

4:57

. Please try not to obsess

4:59

over the daily fluctuations . Some

5:01

people will do that and look at the daily fluctuations

5:04

and get really panicked or really

5:06

excited , depending on whether it's going up or

5:08

down , but likely you're

5:10

going to want to look at these metrics monthly

5:12

, maybe weekly , if your business is

5:14

pretty up and running and very established

5:17

and moving quickly . They each

5:19

contribute to your understanding of the health

5:21

of your website . Also

5:23

, if you aren't looking at any of

5:25

these yet , please give yourself grace

5:28

. It is something that even I

5:30

fall off the bandwagon on and don't

5:32

look at as regularly as I really

5:34

should . So part of this episode is really

5:37

speaking to myself and reminding me I need

5:39

to be doing this . So , and

5:41

if the thought of looking at all of these overwhelms

5:44

you , please pick one first to

5:46

work with and I'll go over which one I recommend

5:48

the most over all of them If

5:50

you can only handle doing one , and

5:53

then , a few months later , once you've got that one

5:55

under your habit and are looking at it regularly

5:57

, add the next one and then the

6:00

third one and then , if you

6:02

really want to go gangbusters , you can keep

6:04

on looking at more data . But we

6:06

also want to be reasonable and not look

6:08

at too much data and not be working in

6:10

our business and on our business . So

6:13

make sure looking at one of these

6:15

is better than looking at none

6:17

of them . So just give yourself grace . Remember

6:19

that if you're not looking at any of them , looking

6:22

at one is better than none . All right , so

6:24

let's get started . So

6:27

we're going to first look at traffic

6:29

volume . As the name implies

6:31

, it's basically how much traffic you're

6:33

getting to your website . Obviously

6:36

, if this number trends downward , then

6:38

something's wrong and you're not getting as much traffic

6:40

as you used to be getting . So

6:43

either it could be your content , it could

6:45

be your website functionality Think about

6:47

your speed or any website errors you

6:49

might have , could be marketing

6:51

strategies and could be search

6:53

engine optimization Really , just to name a

6:55

few . So if you , like I

6:57

said , if you only track one metric I stress

7:00

, this is the one metric you do want to

7:02

track . This is also

7:05

one that I recommend looking

7:07

at at a weekly or monthly basis . For

7:10

our website , for example I know I mentioned this

7:12

before on Saturdays and Sundays

7:14

, our traffic volume drops . That's

7:16

very common for us . It's happened over

7:19

the 20 some years we've been doing

7:21

this business . Our traffic is just lower on

7:23

Saturdays and Sundays Because

7:25

our target market is other online

7:27

businesses . Many of them aren't working

7:30

on Saturday or Sunday , and

7:32

some of them that might have their online businesses

7:34

like a side hustle or they're building it up

7:36

. They might be on it on Saturday

7:39

and Sunday , but in general , most of our traffic

7:41

is Monday through Friday and it usually

7:43

peaks on the Tuesday , wednesday

7:45

and Thursday days . Honestly . So

7:48

I know not to panic when I

7:50

see that traffic drop on Saturday and

7:52

Sunday , because I know that

7:55

is my website's trend . So

7:57

when you're looking at this data more regularly

7:59

, you're going to see patterns like that , so

8:02

that you know , okay , wednesday

8:04

is my most popular day and

8:06

Friday is my least popular day , so just

8:08

keep that in mind as you're looking at this

8:10

. Now , obviously

8:13

, if we see a general downward trend

8:15

across weeks or months of data

8:17

, then I know that there's something wrong with

8:19

our website that needs to be fixed . Either

8:22

my website's functionality is broken maybe

8:24

we added a feature and we thought we tested

8:26

it thoroughly and we missed something or

8:29

maybe my content is not in great

8:31

quality anymore . Maybe we're , you know

8:33

, think we're doing our best on our content

8:35

, but it's really just not landing right . I

8:38

could have added a feature to our website that

8:40

might be slowing it down and causing issues

8:42

with consumers . You know

8:44

, maybe we don't notice because we're here

8:46

near our servers , but other

8:49

people out in the internet will notice

8:51

the slow down more than us . Or maybe

8:53

because our computers are pretty fast , because that's

8:55

what we do is work on websites , so

8:57

maybe we need to try it on another device that's

8:59

a bit slower , or maybe

9:01

my marketing efforts aren't landing

9:03

anymore . So this

9:05

metric is really a general

9:08

great heartbeat of your website

9:10

and ideally , of course , you

9:12

want to see a growth curve on

9:14

traffic volume . All

9:17

right , so next we're going to go into bounce rate

9:19

. Now . It is the one

9:22

that Google took away when they brought

9:24

out Google Analytics 4 . And

9:26

users complained so much that

9:29

they brought it back . It is a very useful

9:31

tool to have on your website . It

9:33

really is a vital thing

9:36

and it helps you understand

9:38

your website a lot

9:40

better . So if you only want to look at

9:42

two metrics , I recommend the traffic volume

9:45

and the bounce rate . It's

9:47

the next one that I would totally add to your

9:49

list to look at regularly once you're in the

9:51

habit of doing this . Bounce

9:53

rate simply shows whether people go to your

9:56

website and leave right away . So

9:58

the word bounce comes from . They basically

10:00

bounce onto one page of your website

10:03

and then they're gone , so kind of like jumping on

10:05

a trampoline and then jumping right back off . They

10:07

land there and they're like nope , this is not for me

10:09

, and they jump right back off . So

10:11

if you have a high bounce rate , or

10:14

if you see your bounce rate getting higher

10:16

, then something is probably wrong

10:18

with your website . Typically

10:20

, it's one of two things . One

10:22

, the wrong people are getting to your website

10:25

. Or two , the right people are getting

10:27

to your website , but they find it unengaging

10:30

and they don't want to stick around . So

10:33

to fix both of these , generally

10:35

you need to fix your messaging , and

10:37

it could be either the messaging on the front end

10:39

, your marketing message or

10:41

it could be the messaging on the back end , basically

10:43

the content on your website's messaging

10:46

. So are you

10:48

messaging and marketing

10:50

to the wrong people ? Are the wrong people

10:52

come to your website and then when they get there it's

10:54

something else than what they expected . Or

10:57

are the right people getting your website

10:59

but then the content they see is

11:02

not engaging and they kind

11:04

of felt like you're going to have something else

11:06

to give them . So

11:09

you'll want to do some digging here and

11:11

this can be a little bit hard

11:13

to nail down as to why

11:16

your bounce rate is high . So you really need

11:18

to be digging into this one and be

11:20

patient with it . So talk to some current

11:22

customers , talk to potential

11:24

customers to see if your website

11:27

resonates with them . You know you're going to

11:29

need to do some detective work here and

11:31

get some other people's opinions . Get

11:34

some opinions of trusted people in your business

11:36

too . An outside look

11:38

on your messaging for both

11:41

your marketing and your content can really help

11:43

narrow down where the disconnect is . Now

11:46

, if you think you've got your marketing messaging

11:48

as well as your website messaging nailed

11:50

down and you think that's pretty solid and good

11:53

, a few other reasons your bounce rate

11:55

may be high . Is that one your website's

11:57

too slow . You might have something

11:59

broken on your website and don't realize it . Maybe

12:02

it only is broken in

12:04

Chrome on a Mac computer

12:06

, or maybe it's only broken on

12:08

an Android phone , for example

12:12

. Another thing could be is your website isn't

12:14

visually appealing or is too cluttered and

12:16

they just get there and they're overwhelmed and they just

12:18

want to leave . So

12:20

for the website too slow issue , you

12:23

can refer back to episodes 20 and

12:25

47 , which we'll link to in the show

12:27

notes , for how to understand and test

12:29

speed metrics on your site and

12:31

how to improve them . Having a

12:33

too slow website can also affect your

12:36

search engine optimization , which we talked

12:38

about in previous episodes too , which

12:40

will also affect your traffic volume

12:42

. So Google is going to penalize

12:44

you if your website's too slow and it's going

12:46

to send less people to your website , and

12:49

the people that get there are

12:51

probably going to bounce because it is too

12:53

slow and they're just going to give up and leave . And

12:56

many of these metrics are interconnected

12:58

, so keep that in mind , ok

13:01

. So , lastly , we're going to talk about our third

13:03

metric , which is traffic sources

13:05

, or acquisition , and the new Google

13:08

Analytics 4 , they

13:10

use the word acquisition for this , and

13:13

so what does this mean and why do we care

13:15

? So traffic sources shows you

13:17

where your traffic is coming from , as

13:19

the name actually implies . This

13:22

metric's very important as it can help you understand

13:24

which of your marketing efforts

13:26

is working . So let's

13:28

say you're running some social media campaigns

13:31

or even some social media ads . If

13:33

you look back at that week or that

13:35

month's worth of traffic source where

13:37

you're doing these sort of campaigns whether it's

13:40

free campaigns or paid campaigns and

13:42

you don't see an increase in traffic from

13:44

your social media compared to a previous

13:46

time set where you weren't doing these types

13:49

of marketing efforts , then

13:51

you know your marketing efforts are

13:53

off somehow . Maybe it's

13:55

your messaging . Again , you know messaging is

13:57

so important We'll be going into this later on

14:00

in our podcast episodes . But

14:02

without knowing that your

14:04

traffic source from

14:06

social media isn't increasing as you

14:08

would expected , you wouldn't know

14:11

you need to pivot in your marketing efforts

14:13

there . You wouldn't know that you might need

14:15

to change your messaging on your social media

14:17

posts or maybe your messaging in

14:19

your social media advertisements . So

14:22

keeping an eye on this is going to be very important

14:24

, especially once you start having advertisements

14:26

to your websites . Also

14:29

, with having traffic sources too , you

14:31

can see how much organic traffic you get

14:33

. This will help you understand

14:35

how your search engine ranking is doing

14:37

so . Organic traffic basically

14:40

is traffic that comes

14:42

to you organically it's

14:44

just kind of the name of the word . It just comes

14:46

to you naturally via search engine results

14:48

. So if you see your organic

14:50

search rising

14:52

your organic search term it's

14:54

kind of hard to say altogether then

14:57

you know your search engine optimization

14:59

is making progress and

15:01

this is great for long game tactics

15:03

like search engine optimization to really

15:06

monitor and make sure it is working . Another

15:09

one I love to look at under traffic

15:11

sources or acquisition is referral

15:13

traffic . So this is traffic

15:16

that comes to your website being an external

15:18

link from somebody else's website

15:20

. If you're getting good quality links

15:23

back to your website , this not only

15:25

helps increase your visibility from other websites

15:27

, obviously , but it also boots

15:29

your search engine optimizations because

15:31

you're going to look more important

15:33

to Google and the major search engines . If

15:35

other websites are linking back to your

15:37

website , getting

15:54

some business relationships or connections outside of your circle and getting some more

15:56

links back into your website , which is going to help boost your credibility , it will help boost

15:58

your search engine optimization rankings

16:01

and all those things . It's going to be a

16:03

nice snowball effect . So if you see

16:05

your referral traffic is low . That

16:08

might be something you might want to target next as

16:10

your goal for , like the next quarter , is

16:12

hey , I want to try to increase my referral

16:14

traffic so that I can get some more diverse

16:17

inbound links into my website

16:19

. Okay , so hopefully

16:21

that wasn't too much and too overwhelming , so

16:23

let's recap where we came from , all

16:25

right . So first off , we talked about three

16:27

metrics that I feel like are minimally

16:30

a great thing to review on your website

16:32

regularly . Again , make

16:35

sure this fits you or you won't do

16:37

it . You know , maybe it's monthly

16:39

, maybe it's every quarter . Don't feel

16:41

bad if it's not all the time

16:43

. The really big

16:46

, really busy websites may be looking

16:48

at this weekly , but honestly , most

16:50

businesses are going to look at this at

16:52

most monthly , and I

16:54

recommend minimally quarterly would be

16:56

a really good idea . That way you have some data

16:59

to look at , some , you know , long-term

17:02

data to really see what your trends are

17:04

. And the things that we talked about

17:06

looking at is your traffic volume how

17:08

much traffic are you getting to your website ? Is it increasing

17:10

? Is it decreasing ? How are you ? How traffic are you getting to your website ? Is it

17:12

increasing ? Is it decreasing ? How are you ? How fast are you

17:15

increasing ? Hopefully you're not decreasing

17:17

and if you are , hopefully it's a slow decrease

17:19

and then you can bounce that back up and

17:21

get it to increase again . The

17:28

next one we talked about was bounce rate . Are people landing on your site and leaving

17:30

right away ? That is a very big , bold red flag , for something

17:32

is seriously wrong . If your bounce rate is high

17:34

, you either have your messaging wrong

17:36

on the traffic that is coming

17:39

into your website or

17:41

your website . There's some functionality

17:43

was wrong or slowness is wrong . And

17:46

then you can use that in conjunction with the next

17:48

one , the traffic sources , to

17:50

see what your bounce rate and whether

17:52

your traffic sources , where they're

17:54

coming from and what might be the source

17:56

of problems with your website

17:59

, and whether you're increasing your traffic sources

18:02

from social , from referrals and

18:04

things like that . We want to make sure that we're growing

18:06

in the areas that we are focusing on

18:08

. All right , so

18:10

that's it for this week's episode . I

18:13

hopefully that was super helpful for you and

18:15

not overwhelming . I appreciate

18:17

you joining me this week on the e-commerce made

18:19

easy podcast . Be

18:21

sure to visit our show notes and other episodes

18:24

on e-commerce made easy

18:26

podcastcom or your favorite

18:28

podcast player . If you're watching

18:30

this on the YouTube channel , make sure you hit that subscribe

18:33

button and if you're listening on

18:35

the podcast , hit that follow button wherever you're

18:37

listening and if you're loving our e-commerce

18:39

made easy podcast , I would be thrilled

18:41

if you rated us and reviewed us on

18:43

Apple podcasts . That really

18:46

helps me reach more listeners

18:48

and empower more people like you

18:50

to thrive in the online business world

18:52

. Thank you again for listening and

18:54

we will see you next week .

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