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Actionable Analytics → What are the Key Metrics When Analyzing Your Website Data?

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Business Intelligence That Matters

The end of the month is fast approaching and it’s time for a deep-dive into analytics. There is SO much data you could easily drown without this blueprint for measuring what matters.

Web Analytics CAN Be Sexy!

The most important data we track is conversion and related metrics. Period!

We start our research considering this question: How successful is the site in attracting leads and moving them along in the sales process? Instead of measuring page views or visitor time on site, we focus on the conversion rate improving over time from various sources, and the value of the site content (using Page Value).

To simplify the process of measuring, we start by answering these critical questions:

  1. What drives high-converting traffic?
    Are we attracting more visitors who convert?
    Where do the best leads come from? (think traffic sources)
  2. Does content engage visitors?
    What’s the most valuable content viewed prior to a visitor converting?
    Is traffic to the products and solutions pages increasing over time?
  3. Do visitors convert into leads?
    The homepage receives the most traffic of any page on the site so its bounce rate is important.
    What are the top PDF downloads and do these map to what you expected them to be?

Where are people coming from who “convert” on your website?
Once you add conversion metrics to this referral data, you can begin planning your strategy to drive more leads from the top sources.  You will be able to identify “conversion metrics” if goal tracking is set up correctly in your analytics program.  Goal ‘conversions’ will be tied to the traffic sources that generated the conversion.  Then you can evaluate the top sources of converting visitors.

Top-Converting B2B Traffic Sources for Website Review

What Matters from an SEO Perspective

Content: Does the site have high-quality content using the keyword phrases you want to be found for and do visitors engage with it? Learn how to locate this data using Google Search Console.

  1. What are your Top Keywords?
    What are most relevant keywords generating impressions & clicks?
    Are important keywords ranking high in Google, but not generating clicks?
    Are there keywords ranking on pages two and three where a greater search optimization effort could boost to page one?
  2. What Content Is Generating Clicks?
    What’s the most valuable content (URLs) in terms of Google organic impressions and clicks?
    What blog posts generate the greatest interest measured by impressions and clicks?
    Are important URLs missing from Google’s index?
  3. Are Inbound Links Growing?
    Are the number of inbound links growing?
    Are the number of domains pointing to your site increasing?

Measuring Social Media and Removing the Hype

According to a recent Harvard Business Review article, “Even for large companies in complex B2B markets, social media offers useful platforms for distributing new types of content to keep customers engaged with their activities.”

Social media produces phenomenal amounts of data that don’t directly impact the company’s bottom line and cutting through that data is key.

Actionable #Analytics → What are the Key Metrics When Analyzing Your Website Data? Click To Tweet

We track data points around social media because one data point can create a positive impact somewhere else. For example, when someone shares your content, Google takes this as a positive vote and these “votes” will influence your site’s search engine rankings.

We track social media conversion rates on-site but as part of this review, we watch the growth in subscribers, social content views, likes, and the number of followers. We don’t always report on this data, but we like to see the trends as it may explain a big spike somewhere else.

BuzzSumo LogoBuzzSumo is a great tool to measure the impact of your social media.

It tracks content on social sites and ranks them based on the number of shares on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest.

Measuring Social Media for B2B

Tools To Build Your Own Reporting Dashboard

No single tool gives 100% accurate data – not even Google tools – but these reporting tools are the minimum required when monitoring a website:

  1. Google Analytics & Tag Manager | Free
    Set up a free Google Account.
    Requires webmaster support to add a javascript snippet to every page of your website.
  2. Google Search Console | Free
    Set up a free Google Account.
    May require webmaster support to verify your website.
    Learn how to set up an SEO reporting dashboard using Search Console
  3. Bing Webmaster Tools | Free
    Set up a free Google Account.
    May require webmaster support to verify your website.
  4. SEMRush | Paid w/ Free Trial
    Great tool to monitor your competitors’ strategies in organic and paid search, and link building.
  5. Panquin Tool | Free
    After logging through your Google Analytics account, you can see how Google’s algorithm updates have impacted your traffic
  6. ahrefs | Paid w/ Free Trial
    Awesome tool to monitor backlinks on your site and your competitors.

Create marketing campaign tracking URLs with this free tool.

Get Off to a Smart Start

Though you may have contacted ToTheWeb to implement a basic SEO program or manage your PPC campaigns, experience has proven clients realize a far greater return on investment when they elect to begin with a website audit. Kick-start your Website Lead Generation: Start with a Website Audit

Listen to this podcast with Annie Cushing to learn how a website audit can help you better understand your traffic.

Actionable #Analytics → What are the Key Metrics When Analyzing Your Website Data? Click To Tweet

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