The Complete Guide to Web Analytics and Why It Matters for Your Business

As a small or medium-sized business owner, the first impression you make is often with your website. It is one of the most useful tools available to you for growth. However, without web analytics, you are just guessing.

For SMEs, using these kinds of insights can make a huge difference. Web analytics allows you to get the answers you need to improve things that matter for your business. It’s no longer about staring at dashboards all day. Analytics can show you how people are using your website, where they came from, and what might be getting in their way.

This guide demonstrates what the use of website analytics means. It covers why analytics are worth your time and how to use analytics to improve your website and your marketing, and your customer experience.

The principles of website analytics are being able to understand what people do when they visit your website. You can learn where your visitors are arriving from, what they are doing, and how you can help them do it better. This can be achieved by collecting, measuring, and analysing your analytics data.

Whether you are interested in the number of visitors your home page receives or which of your blog posts is read the most, analytics supplies clarity for making smarter business decisions.

This process not only builds trust and loyalty but can also be the powerhouse behind profitable actions.

If you are asking why your marketing isn’t working, if people find your site user-friendly, or why your conversion rate is down, website analytics can provide you with the answers you seek.

Web analytics helps:

• Discover what is working (and what isn’t)
• Make clearly informed changes to your site
• Improve your user’s experience (UX)
• Increase the conversion rate of visitors to customers (and sales)

Using the right analytics tools, you no longer have to guess. You can make strategic decisions with data-backed confidence.

Typical examples include:
 

• Users: How many people visited your site
• Sessions: How many times people visited your site
• New VS Returning Visitors
• Traffic Sources: Organic, paid (adverts), Direct, Referral (inbound links), Social

Behaviour metrics help you see:
 

• Pages per session
• Average session duration
• Bounce rate (visitors who leave without doing anything)
• Exit rate (where people generally leave your site)

Conversion metrics include:
 

• Conversion rate
• Transactions
• Revenue
• Goal completions

You can create a snapshot of how your site is performing using website analytics. You will know how many people visit your site, where they come from, and what they are doing whilst they are there.

You can use insights from your analytics to tailor your content and marketing. Web analytics will show you your visitors’ demographics, locations, devices, and behaviour, which will together help you better understand your audience.

Using web analytics, you can identify confusing navigation, slow-loading pages, and where high bounce rates occur. Using this data, you can then fix and improve the site for a better overall visitor experience.

Website analytics allows you to track whether or not your visitors are taking the actions you want them to take. If it’s purchases, sign-ups, or phone calls, you will be able to see where you are successful and where there is room for improvement.

WordStream

With web analytics, you can use custom URLs to track the performance of marketing campaigns. Be it an email campaign, social adverts, or even an offline campaign. This allows you to then focus your time and energy on what works for you and avoid what does not.

So you have acquired your analytics data. Before you dive in, you need to define what success looks like.

For example, if you have an e-commerce site, your specific goal might be to increase your conversion rate to 3% within 3 months. If you own a service business, you may want to track the number of form submissions or consultation bookings you receive in a period.

Having a clear KPI before surrounding yourself with numbers ensures that you are focused on what really matters.

We may be repeating ourselves here, but we see it with almost every client that becomes interested in their analytics. They often become overwhelmed by the amount of data, and trust us here, the deeper you dive, the more the data grows.

Remember to stick to the metrics that matter, those that align with your specific goals. For example, let’s say you are launching an exciting new product. Focus on traffic sources, product page visits, and checkout conversions. Don’t dig into your pageviews or time spent on unrelated pages.

The story that your data tells needs to be assessed in context. It’s best practice to combine that data with your expert knowledge of your industry, your audience, the feedback from customers, and real-world testing.

For example, if you see a drop in session time on a particular page, it could mean that your users are finding what they need faster, or it could be that they are leaving in frustration!

If you have different teams (or even different hats that you wear), the findings from your data need to be shared. Sharing insights not only leads to better collaboration but also helps you make smarter decisions.

For example, if your analytics data shows you that the majority of your leads come from your blog posts, then your marketing team can focus more on their content marketing strategy. Whilst at the same time, your sales team (or hat) can follow up with the most engaging leads.

Deep integration with Google Ads

Heatmaps and user recordings

Who hasn’t heard of Google Analytics? – Well, it is the industry standard for obtaining analytics data. The best bit, it is free! Google Analytics tracks how users interact with your website, and so it can show you which pages are performing well, where your traffic is coming from, and how your audience is converting.

The tool is great for finding your most efficient content and spotting potential weak points (drop-offs) in your sales funnel. For example, you may notice that your product page is receiving a great number of views but very few sales conversions. This is a sign that it may need assessing and is in need of UX improvements.

Linked to Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager allows you to easily add and update its code snippets (tags) to your website. You then don’t need to manually edit the code each time.

Tag Manager helps you save time, improve accuracy, and allows marketers to manage their tracking without the need for developers. Google Tag Manager is particularly good at aiding with conversion tracking, remarketing tags, and even heatmaps (we’ll get onto heatmaps in a minute).

Too many times we have asked clients about their Facebook pixel to witness a blank expression! If you are running ads anywhere on the Meta platform (Facebook, Instagram, or Messenger), it is essential.

Facebook (or Meta) Pixel tracks what people do after they click an advert link to your website. It can show whether they fill out a form, view a key page, or make a purchase. This analytics data can aid in improving your ad targeting and measuring your ROI on Meta Ads more accurately.

A heatmap is a visual tool that can show you where visitors interact with your site, be it clicking, scrolling, or hovering on a page. They help you understand which parts of the page are getting the most attention and which parts are overlooked.

Behaviour analytics tools can reveal problems that are missed in the data-driven reports of Google Analytics.

For example, if users are repeatedly clicking on a button, it may be missing its link, or people are abandoning a page halfway through because it is having loading problems or is overly cluttered.

Hotjar

You can see which businesses are visiting your website by using platforms like Spotler or Lead Forensics. And the best part – they don’t even need to fill out a form with their details.

The tools can match users’ IP addresses to company names and even job titles. Obviously, this information can have great value for B2B (Business to Business) sales. For example, if you are pitching to a company you find is regularly visits your pricing page, it would be a great time to get in touch.

A/B testing is the term used to describe a method of comparing two versions of a web page (or element within a page) to see which one performs better, allowing refinement.

For example, if you want more newsletter signups, you would run an A/B test with Google Optimise (many website builders now have A/B testing functions built in). One version of your page has a short form and one has a longer form. Over a period, your analytics data will show you which version you should discard and which leads to more conversions. The great thing about this is that you can keep going with variations to really refine towards your goals.

High bounce rates can occur for many reasons. We often find it comes down to the page not meeting your audience’s expectations. For example, we worked on a site where analytics showed the exit page was their ‘services’ page. Upon reviewing the data (and then checking it with a heatmap and ux testing), we found that the users were not discovering the information they were looking for. We then dramatically decreased exits from that page by re-writing the content and including clearer offerings and calls to action.

Semrush

When working on an accountancy firm’s website, we found that a blog post was driving nearly 60% of their organic traffic! Their analytics helped us not only notice but replicate this success. So we followed up the “5 Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing an Accountant” with a post entitled “How to Choose the Right Accountant for Your Business” that performed even better.

In the past, website analytics have been primarily used by large companies using specific analytics experts. This is no longer the case. If you are running an SME, web analytics is one of the most practical tools for understanding your website and allowing you to make better, measurable decisions.

Website analytics helps you focus on what truly works for you. From tracking site visits to users’ behaviour, it helps with your marketing and conversion rates. It can be daunting (especially with the sheer amount of data analytics that can provide). So start with the basics, learn what really matters for your business (and what doesn’t), and build from there.

With regular use of tools like Google Analytics and Hotjar, you will gain both clarity and confidence. Use the data, trust in your instincts, and make your website work harder for your business.

At Thanks Tom we don’t just provide website analytics, we tailor our reporting services to fit with your unique business needs. We are here to help you unlock the full power of analytics for your business.

If you are just getting started or want to dive deeper into your data driven insights we can guide you through every step of the way. Our services include settin gup tracking code and configuring the right tools the right wat to extract the right data. We can help you interpret meaning and make smart (SMART) recommendations.

We can carry out improvements to your website directly or work alongside our team, ensuring your website and marketing are always evolving towards better results. Please stop guessing and start growing – let’s have a chat about your journey.