In a recent E-Nor analytics webinar I touched on the topic of landing pages. I interact with a fair amount of Internet marketing consultants and I see a lot of effort focused on driving traffic to websites and building custom landing pages. And I see efforts focused on enhancing landing pages (redesign, new marketing copy, different call to action, etc.) but little effort to measure and analyze key metrics on these landing pages.

What I recommend to site owners and consultants is to direct some of that energy from just driving traffic (and just focusing on cost per click and click through rates) to examining how users are engaging with the landing page.

Measuring and analyzing KPIs such as bounce rates and conversion rates, especially after a level of segmentation (based on visitor type, campaign, etc.) is done will yield amazing results. If you are not setting up goals on your site and not tracking conversions, now is the time to do so. A/B testing and multi-variate testing are also invaluable methods to find out what works best.

Would love to hear your comments on your experiences with landing page metrics and what worked for you and your clients. Thanks!

Technorati Tags: google analytics, google website optimizer, web analytics

Your web design team used every ounce of creativity and design savvy to come up with a professional and stylish website based on the latest XHTML and CSS standards. Your marketing specialist spent many hours doing intense research and setting up an elaborate Pay-per-Click (PPC) campaign. Your webmaster juggled countless keywords and Title tags to come up with a solid search engine optimization (SEO) plan. Even your domain name is catchy! You’ve done everything possible to attract people to your website and keep them there, right? Wrong!

Making a website is only the beginning. Surely there is some point in having a website. Maybe it’s to promote brand awareness, selling your products online, or providing technical support & information for existing customers. How do you know if people are navigating your website in an efficient manner, finding information or products they are looking for, or moving towards your business objectives?

Enter web analytics. The first thing you notice when you look at a web analytics report is the large amount of useful data. Imagine knowing how many unique visitors come to your website everyday, how often visitors come back to your website again, or the exact city that visitors are coming from. The wealth of information doesn’t end there. You would be able to see which marketing campaigns have the best conversion rates. You would also know specific details such as which position is giving the best click through rate and conversion rate for your PPC campaigns. You can define a business goal and a series of steps (a funnel) on your website leading up to that goal; you would be able to visually see where people are joining that funnel and where they are leaving. The information available about visitors through analytics is nearly endless: you would be able to know what web browsers visitors are using, their operating systems, and even the connection speed!

But there is more to web analytics than raw information. Back to our point, surely there is some reason in having a website. Once you are able to define business objectives on your website, you can analyze how visitors interact with your website. Whether it becomes obvious through reports what you need to improve on your website or you discover what works best through A/B testing, once you make those changes you once again observe how visitors are interacting with your website. This is the true power of web analytics – to better your business by improving your website in a methodical way. Instead of trying to guess what is wrong with your landing page or why conversion rates are so low, you can work with accurate data, do your own analysis, and come up with smart recommendations.

Web analytics is for anyone that has any kind of a website. Whether it is eCommerce, lead generation, brand awareness, or informational, web analytics will make your website better and drive business success. Contact E-Nor today for more information on what web analytics can do for your business!

Technorati Tags: google analytics, google website optimizer, web analytics