Neil is the head of marketing for eMobileScan, one of Europe’s leading suppliers to the data capture industry, they stock one of the largest ranges of Symbol scanners and well and the Symbol MC55.

Any business that relies on the internet has one huge advantage over traditional retailers and that is that they have the ability to track and test almost every element of their sites; how people found their way to their site and what they did once they got there.

Even though these advantages are there many retailers do not see value in knowing this information and instead choose to spend their time elsewhere. Google Analytics is probably the most popular tracking tool on the net. At a glance, it offers you clear and easy to understand metrics about your site. But if you are willing to spend a little time and look deeper into these stats you can uncover some hidden information that will help you to make better and more informed business decisions. Here are some key parts of Analytics that many of us just over look.

Internal Site Search

Analytics doesn’t track sites search by default but it will take a minute to set up and with the data it will gather you can get a much better idea of exactly what a searcher wanted to find on your site. No other part of Analytics will be able to give you such an intimate view into the mind of the searcher. With this data you can make a much better decision as to whether the searchers were able to find exactly what they were looking for on your site and whether or not your content was able to answer their questions. The data will tell you this, all you need to do is decipher what the information means.

404 errors

Most people will recognise 404 errors and understand that it means there are problems on your site, having a site that is full of error pages can lower a searchers confidence in your site. If they feel that there are issues with your site they will most likely look for an answer elsewhere meaning that they will leave your site and probably never return. 404 errors are an issue for every site and there a number of reason why they occur but it is also possible to use these to your advantage. Adding your most popular posts or products to these pages can help to keep visitors clicking through your site.  While at the same time it will allow you to pinpoint and fix these issues without losing as many visitors.

Goals and conversion funnels.

I’m sure we all understand what a goal and a conversion is, but what most of us may not understand is what made the visitor convert. By reverse engineering your funnels and conversion you can get a much clearer picture as to what made that visitor take the action you wanted them to. Before you start to review their specific click path it is important that you ask yourself a number of questions, like what content did they view, was there anything special in that content, where there any specific calls to action that pushed them towards a conversion and was there anything different about the layout and the positioning of the page that may have had a positive effect on the conversion. After asking yourself these questions it is now time to research their click path to find the answers. If you can find answers you can then test these elements out on other sections of your site, which in turn will hopefully help to increase conversions there as well.

Google Analytics can offer so many answers to why your site is successful or indeed why if it is failing, however most do not take the time to learn how to use this program because they believe that metrics like total visitors and page views will give them all the answers they need. In truth these metrics hold some of the least useful information because they do not give you a clear indication as to what parts of your site are working and what are not.

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