More qualified traffic = More leads = More money.
Right?
Technically, this is true, but if you are not studying the traffic you are already getting to your business website, you could be missing out on properly optimizing your site for the most qualified leads.
So how can you study and leverage the quality of the traffic you are already receiving so you can get found by more of the right people?
You can use Google’s free tool, Google Analytics.
In this post, we will go into how you can use Google Analytics to analyze your website’s traffic and consequently how to use that information to build an even better strategy for getting more qualified leads/customers to find your business.
But, first things first, if your website does not have Google Analytics installed, please do so RIGHT NOW. Then come back. We’ll wait.
The following information works best if you have had Google Analytics installed with at least a month’s worth of data. This will make our research and conclusions more reliable.
Ready? Let’s dive in.
Step 1: Audience Location
Learn where the majority of your audience is. Where is most of your traffic coming from geographically? More importantly, are these locations places where you can do business? If a lot of your traffic is coming from somewhere in Eastern Europe and yet you are a local company trying to reach local customers, you might want to make sure you are not receiving traffic via bots (organic traffic is always better). This could dilute your real numbers and give you wrong information. Knowing where your traffic is coming from will help you properly tailor your message to suit your target audience and keep them coming.
To find out the geographical location of your audience, once you sign into Google Analytics and select the websiteyou would like to track information for, go to “Audience” and then click on “Geo”. Once in “Geo” go to “Location”.
From here you can explore which country, states/regions/provinces, and even cities most of your audience is coming from.
Knowing where your traffic is coming from will help you tailor your voice and tone appropriately in speaking to your audience. As a business owner, you always want to give your website audience the impression that you get what they are going through and this is best done using the right words when you create content.
Step 2: Traffic Sources
Know your traffic sources. Now that you know the geographical location your audience is coming from, know what is driving them to your site.
To do this, click on “Acquisition” and then “All Traffic”.
Here you should be able to see where the online traffic is being driven from.
What should you do with this piece of information?
Double your efforts on those platforms where most of your traffic is coming from.
If you are getting a lot of traffic referrals from Pinterest, it could indicate that you have an audience on Pinterest you might not be tapping into fully.
Another powerful tool you will find in this Acquisition section is the Search Console tool which will help you uncover the exact keywords or key phrases people are typing into the Google Search Engine and where your website ranks in that search.
To use the full capabilities of the Search Console, you will need to connect Google Search Console to your Google Analytics.
Now that you know the keywords and key phrases people are typing to search for your website to come up, you could further optimize that specific content (blog posts, videos etc) so that it ranks better in search or better yet use it as part of your Google Ads Strategy.
Step 3: Audience Behavior
Study the behavior of your audience. When people come to your website, how do they behave? This is where you will study the exact pages or posts on your website which receive the most attention.
To study this, go to “Behavior”–> “Behavior Flow” –> “Site Content” –> “All Pages”
This should bring up your 10 most viewed pages/posts. You will also find the average amount of time people are spending on each of theses pages. This should tell you how engaged people are with the content on these pages.
There are a number of things you could do with those top most-viewed pages or posts on your website. Three of these that stand out immediately are:
- Create a specific email freebie to go with that post or page so that you know you are capturing people who really enjoy that type content and so will also buy a product along those lines
- Add your email newsletter subscription box to that page.
- Repurpose that piece of content several ways
- Create more content along similar lines using and incorporate the keywords/key phrases we uncovered in the last step to gain even better search rankings
The powerful thing about studying your analytics like this is that:
- It will give you insight into whether or not you are reaching the right audience so that you can tweak things accordingly.
- It will help you to continue to create content that is along the same lines as the ones that are already receiving lots of traffic and engagement.
- Find ways to promote your business more on the platforms that are bringing you the most traffic.
- If you plan to do any kind of paid advertising to get to your audience, you can use the keywords in your Google ads or even Facebook ads.
All these things are exactly the things you need to do in order to continue to drive a steady stream of ideal clients to your website so you can continue to make money in your business.
