25-11-07, 03:21 PM
We often find that companies do not wish to pay for web analytics or SEO, as they thing once there site has gone live, everyone on the web will find them. This is why we think web analytics & SEO is very important to any website business.
Web analytics for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) is a bit like maintaining a garden, you do a little and do it often. This is different to enterprise-level analytics, which should be done a lot and all of the time, and tends to be a shade more complex due to the volume and variety of data sources.
Running a standalone project for improving a website every six months is the equivalent of blitzing the flowerbed, then coming back to find that the weeds have taken over. Regular insight and tweaks to the online presence (the site and marketing) will ensure that performance continues to improve and problems don't go undetected.
Understandably, SMBs always have an eye on cost and are reluctant to shell out on a paid-for web analytics solution. We currently offer our own web analytics with our SEO services called VrStats this very similar to Google Analytics or Microsoft Gatineau, which is currently in beta testing, should be automatic. Except VrStats offers more in depth analysis’s of your website data. Both Google and Microsoft are free and Gatineau is likely to provide further stimulus to product development at this end of the market. Making sense of the data is where the investment should occur. Small and mid-sized businesses are nimble, and they can take advantage of this by putting themselves in a position where they can react quickly to changes in performance.
In a small organisation, a dashboard can facilitate that nimbleness I mentioned, but how do you set one up? In a nutshell, you clarify objectives for the site. Next, you identify corresponding key performance indicators within the web analytics data. This will probably include metrics such as bounce rate, PPC campaign conversion, overall site conversion and entry pages split. Now set up the performance dashboard and trend the data. This will draw all the most important data together in one place, and it enables the analyst to look at it in context. The dashboard becomes the starting point from which site performance can be benchmarked and action can be stimulated.
Spending a few hours each week looking at the data can be enough to identify potential issues or scope for testing and improvement, Making sense of the data will require someone who knows their way around it or is prepared to learn, and this is where the investment comes in. If none of this appeals, you can always cross your fingers!
Web analytics for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) is a bit like maintaining a garden, you do a little and do it often. This is different to enterprise-level analytics, which should be done a lot and all of the time, and tends to be a shade more complex due to the volume and variety of data sources.
Running a standalone project for improving a website every six months is the equivalent of blitzing the flowerbed, then coming back to find that the weeds have taken over. Regular insight and tweaks to the online presence (the site and marketing) will ensure that performance continues to improve and problems don't go undetected.
Understandably, SMBs always have an eye on cost and are reluctant to shell out on a paid-for web analytics solution. We currently offer our own web analytics with our SEO services called VrStats this very similar to Google Analytics or Microsoft Gatineau, which is currently in beta testing, should be automatic. Except VrStats offers more in depth analysis’s of your website data. Both Google and Microsoft are free and Gatineau is likely to provide further stimulus to product development at this end of the market. Making sense of the data is where the investment should occur. Small and mid-sized businesses are nimble, and they can take advantage of this by putting themselves in a position where they can react quickly to changes in performance.
In a small organisation, a dashboard can facilitate that nimbleness I mentioned, but how do you set one up? In a nutshell, you clarify objectives for the site. Next, you identify corresponding key performance indicators within the web analytics data. This will probably include metrics such as bounce rate, PPC campaign conversion, overall site conversion and entry pages split. Now set up the performance dashboard and trend the data. This will draw all the most important data together in one place, and it enables the analyst to look at it in context. The dashboard becomes the starting point from which site performance can be benchmarked and action can be stimulated.
Spending a few hours each week looking at the data can be enough to identify potential issues or scope for testing and improvement, Making sense of the data will require someone who knows their way around it or is prepared to learn, and this is where the investment comes in. If none of this appeals, you can always cross your fingers!
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Webnetics UK Ltd.
Webnetics UK Ltd.