Wednesday, January 16, 2013


For Those Who Don’t Sell Anything Online Per Se


People may think that there is much less to analyze from their websites if they don’t physically make any transaction through their website, but this is mistaken.  There is plenty to learn about your customers and potential clients as you analyze who is viewing your website and what they do there.  Some of those activities which are recommended by the company, online-behavior,  include such things as signing up for a newsletter, registering as a user on your site, downloading general information from your website, linking to your partner websites, or simply reading blog articles generated and or commented on your site.  The important point with non-sales oriented websites is to establish a value to certain activities.  For example, the registration of a new visitor or request for a newsletter could be valued more than that of a simple download.  The registration and newsletter assure future interaction with the same person again in hopes to generate a lead for face to face sales or further inquiry whereas the download of a document could very well be a hit and run type action.  These would obviously be less valuable, but nonetheless still have value.


The very fact that you have a website could lead you to further business opportunities.  Imagine a website which is very simple in nature, but included a contact interface.  This interface could be used to obtain suggestions or comments in general about your business.  Perhaps your clients would like to buy directly from your website, this could be discovered only if this comment/contact interface was available and frequently analyzed.

Avinash Kaushik, the author of Web Analytics 2.0, recommends using four metrics from Google Analytics to judge the effectiveness of your website; these are Loyalty, Recency, Length of Visit, and Depth of Visit.  The following graphic is from his website at www.kaushik.net/avinash.  ZoomMetrix.com offers an additional metric which can prove insightful.  This is Conversions which include Site Registrations, Viewed Contact Us, and Survey Participations.  It will be most important to analyze the value of each of these and continue to track them.

I look forward to learning more about web analytics as I am new to the topic.  If you have any help and advice for a novice, please don’t hesitate to comment any additional insight you may have concerning non-ecommerce businesses.

References:
http://online-behavior.com/analytics/non-ecommerce
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/i-got-no-ecommerce-how-do-i-measure-success/
http://www.zoommetrix.com/reporting/kpi-web-analytics-matter-most-to-non-ecommerce-sites/

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the link to Zoommetrix, I enjoyed the point about Visitor loyalty. Make updates to your site often. I have seen sites where they still have 90's backgrounds and even 90's theme music with a small counter at the bottom. So important to update.

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  2. Good post. As you mentioned and Rob commented, lot of companies still keep the same old websites with no updates to neither content nor their layout. It is very true that not all websites track and analyze the traffic data patterns. This will provide key insights to business development which many of the companies are missing out.

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