I still get clients every now and again who clearly do not understand the importance of tracking their website activity. I will say that it happens much less frequently (than it used to) which is likely a sign of the times. Given the current state of the economy, every dollar spent is being scrutinized more than ever and being able to show what you got for that dollar has become increasingly important. Nevertheless, I find it baffling when a client clearly does not recognize how mission critical it is to track website activity.
Let’s go back to the basics! What will an analytics tool tell you? For starters:
The above list essentially covers the basic information that any analytics tool will provide. Furthermore, the accuracy of all of these metrics will depend on whether or not the site has been coded properly and with the correct parameters. In other words, bad coding = bad data.
If you are not already utilizing an analytics platform to track visitor activity, you are definitely behind the curve, however, don’t let that defer you from getting on the right track now. The first step is deciding which analytics tool to utilize, as there are many to choose from. As mentioned in previous posts, we use Google Analytics internally, as do many of our clients.