Online Buying Process & Google Analytics

Today many marketers invest hundreds if not thousands of Euros to develop a professional website with high quality content; as a way to reach potential customers with information about what they offer. One of the main goals of developing a high quality website is to acquire conversions. A conversion can be a sale, a contact form or even subscribing to a newsletter through the use of your website. One way to measure the effectiveness of your website is by using Google Analytics. By using Google Analytics you are able to examine landing pages performance, the way traffic flows on your website, poor pages that push users away and also how users get to the ultimate goal of converting into customers; in simple words Google Analytics helps you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your website. If you don’t have Google Analytics to examine the behaviour of the users that interact with your website, you are neglecting a huge opportunity.
 
Attracting users to your website and reaching the key point of converting is a process that can be understood very easily by using Google Analytics. This process, better known as the Online Marketing Process, can be split into some main factors.

Exposure
The starting point is to give exposure to your website. This can be done via Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media, adverts on newspapers and TV, press releases, email marketing, Pay-Per-Click adverts, word of mouth and all the other ways and means to promote your website.

Discovery
After giving exposure to the website, users start to discover the content of the site, together with the goods or services that the company provides. These first visits are very important as this is an opportunity to raise awareness about what you offer among potential customers.

Consideration
After the discovery, users consider buying the products and services that you offer. They do this either because your goods or services match their needs, or else because your website made them interested in what you offer.

Conversion
This is the part that revenue managers like, conversions. A conversion is a sale that is done through your site, however it can also be a user submitting information for a quote, a user downloading newsletter and other actions. It is up to you what type of conversion you chose when creating your website.

You may think that after you got the conversion from a customer, your goal was reached and it’s time to wait for another conversion. However the process is a never ending cycle. After the conversion one must maintain customer relationship such as communication, customer service, and after sales services. Maintaining a positive customer relationship will result in customer retention and since you are offering positive engagement customers will return.

With Google Analytics you can study in which of these steps on your website you have poor performance. For example if you are getting very few views even after promoting your website, it could mean that you need to change the means of advertising your website. If you are getting few conversions, Google Analytics can help you study which pages are having poor performance; this means that you have to optimise the poor page on your website to then direct users to your conversion page. If you haven’t yet installed Google Analytics on your site, you are at a disadvantage with you competitors. Google Analytics shows you the whole picture to improve your website performance.

Daniel Coleiro Kingswell is a Search Engine Marketing Specialist at Alert eBusiness Internet Marketing Division – www.alertemarketing.com