In order to know whether or not any marketing activity, or website, is being effective we need to measure actions. A successful website is one that either always succeeds in taking an action from every visitor on the first visit, or that provides content which has visitors returning numerous times until they take an action.
One of the most simple and common ways to measure website activity is to install the code from Google analytics. The Google analytics website allows you to set up a free account and there is a WordPress plug-in that will set up the code on your site for you. From that point, everybody who visits your site will be counted and you can view lots of exciting information about how they use your site.
The Google analytics website allows you to not only see the number of people visiting your site over time, but can also be broken down to individual pages. We can also see the time that people take on particular pages. If they land on a page, as you may have links elsewhere which do not go straight to the home page, we can see if they continued on the site, or left.
I expect you want to be seen all over Google search, and that you have keywords or phrases that you expect Google to place you at the top. How you may be able to achieve that is discussed elsewhere, but with Google analytics we will be able to see the actual search phrases that people have used to find your website. Owners are often surprised for the keyword combinations that may first bring them traffic from Google search. As you are unlikely to achieve your primary keywords immediately, due to competition, these other key phrases will give you an indication of what Google search thinks of your website.
When you start using email marketing to continue your conversation with potential customers, Google analytics can again be used to help track the opening and usage of your emails. This can be achieved by using Google analytics within your emails and also tracking the links that you give in those emails back to your website.
If you use shopping cart facilities within your site like Woocommerce, you can install additional controls within Google analytics so that it will not only calculate your visitors for you, but can also report on the profitability and sales.
There is a Google Chrome plug-in for the browser which allows you to connect your Google analytics account. Then you can visit your website and it will overlay the number of visitors, and the links where they are clicking, to go to another page. This can be an excellent way of seeing whether your menus and links are being used as you hoped, and if any need tweaking.
Google analytics does allow you to add multiple administrators, or users. This means that you can also give your staff, or a contractor, access to the analytics statistics. There are a number of levels of control from administrator to just being able to view the statistics. So you can make sure you do not give more control than you need.
