Analytics and data are the beating heart of any digital marketing strategy, including search engine optimisation.
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: SEO can be a long, time-consuming process. It isn’t just content, coding and web design – for your SEO strategy to succeed, you need to:
- Keep tabs on it
- Adjust your strategy as needed
- Respond to changes and dips
And you can’t do this without a properly-configured analytics system.
The beautiful thing about digital marketing (and SEO in particular) is that since it’s all digital, everything can be tracked.
In fact, there’s so much stuff being tracked that it can be almost impossible to pick out the metrics that you actually need from the ones that don’t really matter to you!
How do you track user behaviour? How user behaviour analytics work
The key to understanding user behaviour on your site is tracking.
And for that, you need to get behaviour analytics set up on your site.
The first thing you should when setting your site up is setting it up with one of the main analytics platforms – we recommend Google Analytics, as it offers more than enough depth for most users, and is completely 100% free.
Once these analytics are set up (in the case of Google Analytics, by embedding code in your site), they’ll automatically start tracking and collating a truly mind-boggling amount of data, all of which can be accessed through the console.
You’ll be able to log in and find data on all sorts of different things, ranging from critical metrics to hyper-niche information like:
- How many people visit your site
- How long they stay for
- What devices they’re using
- Where they’re based
- Which pages they’re clicking on
- Facebook likes
- Email open rates
- Which buttons get the most interaction
Of course, there’s such a thing as too much detail!
One of the biggest mistakes many people attempting DIY SEO make is trying to keep track of all of these different metrics and datasets on their own.
Here’s a tip: most of the time, you only need a couple to maintain a successful SEO or digital marketing strategy!
What do website analytics allow you to do?
Adjust to changes on-the-fly
Digital marketing is a fast-moving area. One day, you’re on top of the world – the next, your rankings have plummeted.
The best way to keep on top of this is by closely monitoring your analytics, and making changes to compensate the moment things start looking a little bit dicey.
For example, say the number of conversions has dropped, with fewer people clicking on a contact form or making calls – using analytics tools, you can identify when this is happening and more importantly, take action to reverse it.
PPC advertising campaigns
While we’ve been focusing on SEO, that isn’t the only aspect of your digital marketing that website analytics can help with – in addition to tracking traffic and interaction, analytics can also give you insights into your PPC advertising campaigns.
With data such as cost, conversion rates, clicks and more, you’ll be able to determine which of your ads are performing and give them a boost, as well as make adjustments to lower-performing ones.
See where you’re doing well
It isn’t just about search engine optimisation – thanks to the huge range of different metrics being tracked, analytics tools can also help you see where you’re doing things right.
For example, analytics might tell you that by helping you identify which pages are gaining traffic, which pages are generating conversions and more.
Armed with this information, you might tweak your SEO strategy to feature more internal links to these high-performing pages in order to boost their position in searches!
The most important metrics if you don’t know how to understand user behaviour
Okay, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, it’s time for the meat-and-potatoes of today’s subject: which metrics you’re going to need to track as part of your digital marketing strategy.
Specifically, we’re going to focus on the metrics you’re going to need to understand user behaviour.
User experience (UX)
We know, it’s one of the broadest, hardest-to-define aspects of user behaviour – that said, understanding the user experience can help you make said experience all the more pleasant, while also indirectly increasing the amount of conversions your site generates.
Luckily for you, there are many ways of tracking UX:
- In-page clicks & mouse movement
- Scroll depth
- User navigation patterns (what pages do they navigate to?)
- Heatmaps and recordings (something Google Analytics doesn’t include)
- Site loading speed and responsiveness
- Mobile-friendliness scores
While each of these are primarily used to measure other aspects of user behaviour, you can get a rough idea of how users are using your site, and their experience doing so.
Content performance
If you ask our digital marketing agency, SEO is one of the most effective ways that a small or medium business can generate leads online, leading to the best ROI and results overall.
And when it comes to search engine optimisation specifically, content is one of the most important parts.
How do you gauge the performance of your content? Luckily, there are a number of metrics that analytics programs offer which you can use to determine how your content is performing:
- Popularity
- Engagement and sharing
- Time on page
- Bounce rates
- Clickthrough rates
- Exits
And of course, you can’t forget rank tracking – if we’re talking SEO, then the ranks themselves aren’t something that you can overlook.
(Just be warned, this will require a separate program from GA!)
Conversion data
Like we mentioned above, the main purpose of your business’ site is to generate new leads. That means making conversions – so naturally, you’re going to want to hear about what data you can use to measure this aspect of user behaviour.
Luckily, analytics tools like Google Analytics allow you to:
- Track conversion rates for individual pages or buttons
- Perform form testing, where you check your signup and contact forms for functionality
- Set up A/B testing, testing different signup forms and page layouts against each other in order to find the one with the best conversions and thus optimise your checkout process
And of course, it also allows you to track your conversions by button, form, page or overall, allowing you to identify any dips in conversion rates and adjust accordingly.
Engagement
Not every visit to your site will end with a conversion. While some unfortunately end with people bouncing, many others might result in users returning at a later point once they’ve had time to check out your competition or mull things over.
Some metrics you can use for this include:
- Time on page
- Clickthrough rates
- Pageviews
- Scroll depth
- Average session duration
- Bounce rate
- Exit rates
If your site uses chatbots or live chat, you can also get an idea of user engagement by looking at the metrics for these as well.
Don’t be afraid to ask a digital marketing agency in Melbourne to help you analyze behavioral data
While this is a good primer, the fact of the matter is that tracking user behaviour is only one part of your digital marketing efforts. Altogether, it can be a lot of work, especially when you take into consideration all of the other things you need to look after as a business owner.
If your goal is to craft a digital marketing strategy that gets the phone ringing, then you’re going to need to keep a close eye on user behaviour.
And of course, you’re going to have to include search engine optimization in it!
While user behaviour tracking and SEO are things you can feasibly do on your own, for best results, you’ll want to get an SEO agency in Melbourne to take care of it for you.
Our SEO specialists are experts in tracking user behaviour and using that to improve your search engine optimisation. Drawing from years of experience and using a powerful suite of different tools, analytics and metrics, we’re able to get small businesses like yours the results you want.
The result? A digital marketing strategy that’s responsive and more importantly, effective!