As more Australians are searching for financial products and services online, your digital presence is essential in today’s competitive market. But with just a short time frame to make an impact, you want to make sure that visitors to your website stick around for long enough to become actual clients.

So how can you know if your website is getting the attention it deserves – or if you need to make some changes so it can stand out from the crowd? The answer lies in Google Analytics.

How it works

Google’s web analytics tool collects and processes information about your website’s visitors and their online behaviour. It enables you to track how many people are coming to your website and what they’re doing when they get there.

For example, Google Analytics can give you insights into the age, gender and location of your website visitors – as well as how often they visit, and how long they spend on each webpage. It can also reveal other interesting details like which sections of the page they click on and how far they scroll down. You can even learn how people find your site, whether it’s through a search engine, paid advertising, your email campaign or a link from someone else’s site.

This information is useful for measuring the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and understanding how you can refine and improve your marketing strategy to drive more traffic to your website. It could even reveal a potential new pool of clients and help you find ways to tap into them.

The importance of planning

Before you delve into the world of big data, it’s a good idea to take some time upfront to plan ahead. The internet has opened up access to such a massive amount of information that it’s important to narrow your focus and think about what you actually want to achieve. Otherwise, you could end up being overwhelmed by the sheer quantities of data available.

To navigate your way through the data, you’ll need to decide what you want to measure and why. Make your aim as specific as possible: whether it’s finding out how many people completed a contact form or clicked on a recently added feature of your site. You might also want to know if visitors are checking your website from their smartphones, or what the trigger points are that make people leave the site.

Whatever your end goal, go in with a plan – then create a personalised dashboard in Google Analytics to report on the results. That way, you’ll only receive the metrics that are important to your business.

Getting started

If you don’t already have a Google account, you’ll need to set one up before you can use Google Analytics. Then you can create a Google Analytics account by entering a few details, including your Google account name and your website’s address.

Once that’s sorted, you’ll receive a tracking ID, which is a code made up of letters and numbers. You’ll also get a JavaScript code, which you’ll need to paste into every page of your website.

Next, you’ll be given a range of options to set up tracking for your website. One of the easiest to use is the Google Tag Manager, a free and easy-to-use online platform.

With Tag Manager, you can make changes to the data you wish to track without having to update the code on your website each time. But if you’ve never used the platform before, it’s worth watching an online instruction video to make sure you get it right.

Making the most of the data

Remember, the data you track is only valuable if you put it to good use – for instance, to shape your marketing strategy based on the insights you gain into your clients’ behaviours and preferences.

If, for example, you find that most visitors to your website are directed from social media channels, then it may be worth investing more time and energy into developing your social media presence to attract more potential clients.

Or, if you find that visitors aren’t staying for long on your website, you might want to think about new features you can add to keep them interested – and turn your website visitors into real, live clients.

Things you should know: Count used reasonable efforts to ensure the commentary in this blog was accurate and true at the time that it was posted but Count is not liable for any errors or omissions in the commentary. Since the time of posting it is possible that regulatory requirements and laws upon which the commentary were based have changed and the content is outdated. The commentary provided in this blog is informational only and while care was taken in the preparation of this blog, no liability is accepted by Count, its related entities, agents and employees for any loss arising from reliance on this blog. Any commentary regarding past economic performance is no indication of future performance and should be used as a general guide only.