Analytics Addiction: An Important Weekly Internet Marketing Process

TweetPeople love marketing on the Internet because they say it is (and I quote)…

“more measurable.”

But ——  in an act of irony only outdone by my 2 year old daughter wearing a “Daddy’s Darling” onesie while screaming and raking my face with her fingernails ——  I usually find that business owners have no way to measure what is happening on their website.

Using “The Google Machine”

Google offers a free program called Google Analytics that will offer you more than you care to know about the health of your website.  It is easy to install (especially if you are using WordPress)  and is designed for even the most data averse business owner.

No matter how UN-analytical you are, there is one report you should look at once per week.

[I will mention here that this report is the "gateway drug" to all other reports.  If you monitor this report once per week, you will soon begin to delve deeper and deeper into the statistics.  And this is a good thing --- unless you become a statistics junkie.  You will know that you are a statistics junkie if you are checking your Google Analytics more than once per day and are looking for a way to access it via your smart phone. ]

Traffic Sources Report

The Traffic Sources report is an important report to look at once per week.

There are only three different sources of traffic on the Internet:

1)  Referring Sites

If someone links to you, you write a guest post  or you place something interesting on a forum or comment section of a website —- people will click and they will register as a visitor to your website.

This type of traffic is reflected as “Referral Traffic” in your Google Analytics.

2)  Direct Traffic

If someone bookmarks your site — or someone types your website address directly into their browser this is registered as direct traffic.

3) Search Engines

If someone goes to Google.com, Yahoo.com, etc and searches for ‘best yellow widget’ —–  then Google/Yahoo displays your site and the person clicks —- this is search engine traffic.

The Gateway To Google Analytics Addiction

Take a look at the breakdown in the image above.  Almost 3/4 (70.48%) of the traffic to this website is coming from referring sites.

Aren’t you curious?

What websites are referring all that traffic?

What keywords are people typing in when they are coming in via ‘search engine traffic?’

How long do people remain on your website when they enter via Direct Traffic vs Referral Traffic?

This is why I call this the “Gateway” report in Google Analytics.  It leads to Google Analytics addiction.  :)

Click to drill down on these reports and find out where the traffic is coming from.  Start exploring the statistics on your website once per week.

It will do you good.

But be careful.  Don’t become an Analytics junkie.  The data, in and of itself, doesn’t make you any money.  It is a tool.

Do you use an Analytics program?  How do you keep from checking it every other hour?