Millions of webmasters are using big data analytic tools to track their website users.
That is great, right?
Well, the problem is that most of those webmasters do not know how to use the tools. Probably you are one of them.
SEO experts will tell you to install the tools into your site, and you will obligingly do it. Because, well, they are gurus, and whatever they say should be the holy grail of digital marketing. However, they do not tell you how to use the tool to improve your conversion rates.
Therefore, the tool stays on your site as an aesthetic prop, but its real gold-mine is unexploited.
In this post, we are going to change things. We will tell you how you can use some of the stats on your big data analytics tool to improve your website conversion rates.
Here are ten proven ways to use stats to optimize your website.
- Number of Pageviews vs bounce rate
Suppose you are attracting traffic to your site, but the users immediately leave the site without taking the expected action. It could be that you have drawn the traffic organically or through paid advertising.
But when the visitors come to your page, they immediately leave. Avinash Kaushik is famous for saying that your visitors ‘came, saw and puked.’
Now, this isn’t good because you will not be making any headway in your business. You will not have anything to show for your digital marketing efforts.
Probable reason:
Your content is not engaging enough. It could be that your page is crappy, full of rehashed and regurgitated content. Readers do not want this. They want content that spell-binds them; that hooks them to your page so that they can read, get convinced and take the necessary action.
The reason for high bounce rates despite having a good number of page views could also be that you over-promised, but you have under-delivered.
Yes, you had a clickbait SEO title that they saw on search engines, but they get so disappointed when they visit your actual page. What you promised your visitor is not what they get when they visit the page.
Expert Opinion:
Do not promise what you cannot deliver. Neil Patel advises on making your content as engaging as possible.
Use a captivating introduction that has a halo-effect on the reader, followed by a story that keeps them scrolling down your pages as they read.
Use engaging videos that explain what your conatent is about. People tend to stick and watch videos hence increasing the dwell time on the page.
Don Schindler believes that slow page speeds and having crappy hosting cause high bounce rates. You will therefore need to look into these two.
- The Number of readers engaging with content above the fold is more than those scrolling down.
You can tell how people are interacting with your pages by using heatmap tools. They inform you where people are clicking and how far they are going into a page.
If your heatmap tool says that people are engaging with only content at the top of the fold and then leaving, there could be a problem with your content.
Reason:
Content is not engaging. It could also mean that people have already found a solution to their problem and feel that they have no more business on your page.
Expert Opinion:
Put your call to action buttons (CTAS) above the fold where the heatmap shows where people are clicking.
Make your content below the fold equally engaging. The Entrepreneur says that you need to create content that people can quickly skim through. They also emphasize the need to have lots of visual content to engage your users.
- Number of people visiting your site through different devices
Google Analytics will show you the number of people visiting your website through different devices, say smartphones, desktops, or tablets. With this metric, you will see the device bringing in the most traffic and tell the people’s behavior using such a device.
If, for example, you find that people using a smartphone are highly likely to leave the page immediately after entering, you could look to see why they are doing that. It could be that your users cannot see the webpage clearly on a mobile phone.
Expert Opinion:
Brian Sutter published a post on Forbes saying that you need to optimize your website for mobile so that it is snappy fast. It also needs to give mobile users what they want quickly.
- Load speeds for your converting pages are slow compared to others.
You might find that some of your pages have slower loading speeds than others, and people will, of course, tend to engage with content in fast loading pages compared to those slow ones. Remember, this is the internet where patience is no virtue.
Those pages with slow loading speeds could be the ones you want your users to engage with and probably convert. But oops, the loading speed is so slow. You will need to work on those pages to better the load speeds.
Expert Opinion:
Moz says that this problem comes about if so many large images need compression and there are CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files requiring minification.
- Visitor acquisition reports
The visitor acquisition report tells you where your visitors are coming from. You have invested heavily in paid ads, but the Google Analytics report shows you are not getting any traffic from this source. You are getting your page views organically.
A good turn deserves another. If most of your traffic is from organic sources, you could improve it by improving your SEO efforts.
- See the demographics stats of your audience.
This tells you the age groups, cities, interests, languages, and gender of the users visiting your site. Suppose you are in the senior’s niche targeting to write content for seniors aged 65 years and above, but this metric tells you that your visitors are between 20 to 45 years.
Solution
Craft content that fits the majority demographic of your site. In the scenario where you had a senior’s niche that was attracting young people of 20 to 45 years, you could craft content that guides them on how to take care of their seniors.
- More new users than returning users
This new vs. returning users metric tells you how fruitful your digital marketing efforts are and how engaging your content is. More unique than returning users means that though your acquisition skills are excellent, retention is crappy.
Expert Solution
Hotjar tells you to incorporate survey forms that ask your users what their search intent is to deliver to them what they want.
- On-site search queries
When you have enabled on-site search queries, you can know what content users would like to see on your site.
Expert Solution
Yoast says that this metric tells you what new keywords you could write about in your content calendar.
- User behaviors on site
When you set goals on Google Analytics, you can see the user behaviors and how they engage with your site. They could, for example, be reading all the content on the page but not clicking on your CTAs. Others might be clicking on the ‘add to cart’ button but not buying your products.
What could be wrong?
Well, it could be that your sale funnel pages are not that engaging.
Expert Solution:
Trustpilot says that you could improve this by having a testimonials page that tells new users how other customers found your product.
- Track the SEO keywords bringing in traffic to the site
You need to know what keywords your users are typing on search engines before they come to your site. Are the keywords buyer intent, or could it be that the users are just interested in your site’s information?
Expert Solution:
Kurt Phillip of Convertica.org says that you need to know the keywords that users are searching for, crafting content that delivers what they want.
Conclusion
Tracking analytics data is useful, but without knowing how to use it isn’t very sensible. After reading this article, I am sure that you now know what to do with the data provided by your big data analytics tool.