Are One of These Web Analytics Excuses Responsible For Your Poor Website Performance? (Dallas, TX)

Ask almost any small business owner if he measures the performance of his business and he'll tell you that he does. Some using sophisticated accounting practices, others instinctively tracking only a handful of key indicators, and more still tracking only by total sales volume. But ask them if they hold their web site responsible for its contribution to their business and you'll usually get one of these answers:

• We do that already.
• My web hosting company has an analytics program they give me.
• It's not necessary (or some variation).
• I can't afford it.

One at a time, please.

“We do that already.”

Really! Do you know your site's conversion rate (careful, trick question!) Any idea at what point in your conversion funnel that you're losing most of your prospects? How 'bout your content? Do you know what page is drawing the most visitors from search? If you think web analytics done properly means knowing how many “hits” you had last month please go to the back of the line and raise your hand if you have any questions from now on, thank you.

“My web hosting company has an analytics program they give me.”

Wonderful answer, unfortunately it has little to do with the question posed. The question was, “do you somehow track your website's performance, ask the hard questions about, “why” then make changes to the site in order to achieve a continuous improvement? It's a yes or no query.

All I know at this point is that your web hosting provider has secured an open-source (free) program that tracks fairly simple statistics and offers them to any of their customers that can even find the darn thing in the maze that is the administration back-end of the site. Let's be honest, most business owners don't even know their log-in and password to their hosting account much less where they analytics software is---excuse me, it's really a statistics package and provides little if any actionable information.

What does that mean? Well, your statistics package tells you that your site received 50 page views today. What are you going to do with that information? Or that your Home Page has fewer visitors than your About Us page. What does that tell you? Statistics are results out of context and tell you little about what action to take. For that, you need someone who knows how to take the next step which is take raw data and put it in a context that gives you insight into what's happening on your site and why.

I'm happy that your web host gives you access to a statistics package. How is that helping you? Yeah, it's not, is it.

“It's not necessary.”

Really. Then why did you spend any money at all to produce the site? You track the gas mileage on your car because gas is expensive and the overall performance of the vehicle is important, or should be, so the car lasts a long time. It has to carry its own weight.

We track the results of the people we hire in various ways. Sales reps are tracked by their activities and the outcome of those activities. If they fail to measure up they're usually given the opportunity to improve somewhere else. Performance matters yet even small businesses spend half a year's salary for a sales rep on building a website then fail to measure its performance, because “it's not necessary”??

What this answer usually indicates is, “I don't know how to go about it”, “I don't want to admit I don't know how”, “I truly don't have time to do it”, “I don't know anyone who could do that for me” or some variation of those. Nothing wrong with any of those responses. The answer though, is that you need to find a good web analytics practitioner and put them to work.

“I can't afford it.”

Chances are you've never looked into how much it costs, so how can you offer this response? I'll bet if you knew what it was costing you you'd get the checkbook out and ask how much to write the check for.

Let's say that a couple hours of analyst time each month could be had for your small business for a couple hundred bucks each month. Let's also assume that the average lifetime value of a new account for your operation is a conservative $15,000. Do the math. If $2,500-$3,500 a year worth of website improvement analysis yields just one new account the first year---one new account that you wouldn't have otherwise gained---then you're up approximately $12,000 ($15,000-$3,000). Do better than that and you'll be begging your analyst to spend more time on your site.

Measure your website's performance. It'll make you more money than it costs, doesn't have to cost a lot of money to begin a program, and your business owner buddies will stop laughing at your online efforts. And for those of you who take great pride in not spending any money on setting up your website because you had your nephew's friend throw one together for you, the rest of us can tell!

Give us a call at 214-213-7445 and let's take your website's production to the next level.