So you’ve got a website that you think looks the part, is easy to navigate and gives potential customers all the information they need to know – but do your website visitors feel the same?

By adding Google Analytics to your website you can receive monthly reports on its performance. It is a fantastic tool that can help you identify if your website is working for your business and where it may need work to improve it. And what’s more, the basic analytics application is absolutely free!

An example of Google Analytics Dashboard:

As shown in the image above, the Google Analytics Dashboard provides you with key information about the performance of your website. Here are just a few of the useful stats that the monthly report includes:

Visits – this is the number of people that have landed on your website. If you have carried out a marketing campaign that aims to drive people to your website you can compare the number of visits prior to the campaign with the results after the campaign has finished to find out if it was successful.

Bounce Rate – this is when a visitor leaves your website, the statistics will show which pages of your site have the highest bounce rate. If your statistics show that one of your pages has a particularly high bounce rate it may be worth re-designing or re-thinking that page. If your homepage has a high bounce rate you are in trouble as it is likely that your website is not getting your message across clearly or engaging the user to read on and find out more about your business.

Average time on site – this shows you how much time your visitors spend on your website (on average). Again this can give you a good idea of how engaging the visitor is finding your site and if it is providing them with the information they need.

Map – if your business is international you can see where in the world people have been viewing your website and help you recognise those countries who don’t visit your website. You can then produce a marketing campaign to target those countries and see if this improves your visits from those areas.

Traffic Sources – this shows you where the traffic is coming from you your website, is it from a search engine, direct to your website or via a back link. This information allows you to recognise how people find your website and identify how you can better promote your site.

Google Analytics is free, simply set up an account at http://www.google.com/analytics/ You do however have to put some code onto your website. Your website developer can do this for you. If you would like help. First Impression can set up an account and add the code to your website for just £60 + VAT showing you how to access your account and make use of this fabulous tool.

If you already have analytics and you are finding that your website isn’t performing as well as it should be, contact First Impression on 01457 857111