Tracking Website and Basic Social Media Metrics

by Anne Swoboda | Jan 14, 2018 | Blog

Every business and organization should track their digital marketing metrics on their website and social media accounts. It’s the only way to know whether you’re reaching your digital marketing goals. It also ensures that your time and efforts spent on digital marketing are worthwhile.

First, we’re going to touch on which website metrics are important to track and where to find them in Google Analytics. Then we’ll dive into basic social media metrics.

Website

If you don’t already have Google Analytics set up, this set up guide can help you connect your website and start collecting data.

There are three basic components to look for in to website analytics: traffic, audience demographics, and website content behavior.

Traffic

Website traffic metrics tell you how many people are visiting and finding your website.

To find the number of times your website was visited in Google Analytics, go to Acquisition > Overview. Here you can also see how many visits were from new users/visitors to your website.

For a more detailed look, go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium. Here you’ll see how many visits are from direct traffic, organic search traffic, paid search traffic, referral traffic, or customized campaign traffic.

Direct traffic is where visitors typed your URL directly into their browser. Organic search and paid search traffic is from visitors who searched keywords that directed them to your website. Referral traffic tells you which websites or blogs link to your website.

Campaign traffic is from campaigns that you created in Google’s Campaign URL Builder for email, social media, or other advertising efforts. These can be tracked separately in Google Analytics and indicate metrics generated directly from your campaigns.

If you post content on social media that links to your website, you’ll want to know how many people click through to your website. To see this, go to Acquisition > Social > Network Referrals. This data will help you determine whether your social media fans and followers are also website visitors.

Audience Demographics

It’s important to know who visits your website. Go to Audience > Demographics > Geo > Location and click on United States to see a breakdown of visitors by region/state. Click on any state to see a city breakdown.

Go to Audience > Mobile > Overview to see how many visitors saw your website on desktop, mobile, and tablet. You can even see which brands and models of devices were used.

On any metric view, you can add a secondary dimension. This is especially important when considering how many visitors used a mobile device to view your website while they were in your city. To do this, click Secondary dimension and select Users > City.

As with the traffic metrics above, it’s good to know how much traffic came from mobile devices, how long mobile traffic stayed on your website, and how many pages mobile devices visited.

How many times a return visitor viewed to your website is essential knowledge. Go to Audience > Behavior > New vs Returning to see how many sessions/visits are by new visitors. View the frequency and engagement of these visits in the Audience > Behavior tab.

Visitor age, gender, interests, and additional data are also available this Audience view.

Website Content Behavior

Now that you know how many people visit your website and who they are, it’s time to delve into which pages they want to view, which pages draw people to your website, how fast your website loads, and which pages are uninteresting to visitors.

The top pages on your website will tell you what content people want to view and learn. This can be viewed on Behavior > Site Content > All Pages. The Landing Pages indicate which pages visitors see first, as well as what content draws people to your website.

Similarly, the Exit Pages tell you the last page visitors see before they leave your website. This may indicate whether they found pertinent information or not. Analyzing this data can help you determine if specific content is missing on those pages.

Bounce rates will tell you how many people left your website without clicking through to any other pages. A high bounce rate indicates that visitors aren’t interested in your content. To measure your bounce rate, go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages and look at the Bounce Rate column.

Website visitors are becoming increasing impatient on slow loading websites. By going to Behavior > Site Speed > Page Timings, you can see how quickly your website pages load. Speed Suggestions are provided to make pages faster.

Basic Social Media Metrics

Knowing your social media metrics are just as important as knowing your website metrics. Track how many people you reach on social media and how they engage with your content.

Below are the basic metrics to track in your social media efforts.

Facebook

On your Facebook page, go to the Insights tab to view and export your Facebook data. Click Export Data to download your Page and Post metrics for a specific date range. These exports will provide most of your basic Facebook metrics.

The Page Level export indicates the number of total fans as well as new fans generated during that date range. Total reach and total impressions are also available in this export. The reach and impressions data in this export are for any content associated with your page, not just your post content.

The Post Level export indicates the reach and impressions per post. Click on the Lifetime Post Stories by Action tab to see the total count of interactions/stories from your page posts. These include post likes, comments, and shares.

As you analyze these metrics, it’s important to assess which types of content (photos or links) and which topic themes generate the most reach, impressions, and interactions.

If you promoted any posts or ran Facebook ads, view those metrics in the Facebook Ads Manager.

Go back to your Facebook page Insights tab and click on the People tab to see fan gender, age, and location demographics.

Instagram

Instagram metrics can be viewed in the app if your account is an Instagram business profile. Tap the bar graph icon in the top right corner of your profile to view Insights such as total followers, total posts, and top posts.

Use a free or paid third-party tool, such as Iconosquare, to see likes, comments, and engagement rate, and to get an exported metrics report.

Twitter

To see basic Twitter metrics, log in to Twitter and go to the Twitter Analytics home page. Here you can see a 28-day summary and monthly metrics, including the number of tweets, tweet impressions, profile visits, mentions, and new followers. Your top tweet, top mention, top follower, and top media tweet are also displayed on this page.

The Tweets tab provides a more detailed look at your tweet impressions, engagements, engagement rate, link clicks, retweets, likes, and replies. You can also export data from this screen for quick number crunching.

The Audiences tab provides demographic data such as gender, interests, occupation, household income, and more.

Need Help?

Cygnet Strategies offers three versions of Digital Assessments for individual businesses and communities to help you generate strong results from your digital marketing efforts. Contact us today to see how we can help you.

Gearing Up Online Presence for Small Businesses

by Anne Swoboda | Jan 11, 2018 | Blog

The number of people researching businesses online before they visit is increasing. Smartphones have replaced phone books and potential customers expect easy access to hours of operation and the ability to plug in driving directions.

To provide adequate customer service before the customer even steps foot in your door, there are a few standard website basics that must be included on every small business website.

Website Basics

A company website should be clean and up to date, both in terms of content and design. Hours of operation should be listed and easy to find. The current year’s copyright date should be included in the footer. Images should be engaging, in focus, and not look dated.

Contact Information

Each website page should include the business’ contact information to increase SEO. This includes business name, full address, phone with area code, email address and logo. Contact information should be listed in text, not placed as an image in the header. Search engines cannot read text in an image.

Website Navigation

The website’s navigation should be intuitive and include social media links in the header or footer. Content and links should be verified regularly and dead links should be removed as they indicate that the business information may not be accurate.

Responsive Design

Most importantly, all business websites need to be responsive on mobile devices. If a potential customer does not have an easy, user-friendly experience visiting a business website, there’s a good chance they will not visit in person. The font should be large enough on mobile and desktop.

Other Sites

In addition to a website, business listings on Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor should be claimed and updated.

Social Media

Many businesses utilize social media in addition to their website. Facebook is still the powerhouse for nearly all businesses, with Instagram and Twitter following, depending on the nature of the business. Some businesses also use Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Flickr.

A business should look at their target market before joining a social media platform. If the target market is not using one platform, it might be worth the effort to update that platform with business content.

Facebook

Facebook pages should be updated 2-3 times each week. Some businesses like to update theirs daily. We recommend not updating your page more than once per day unless it’s being used to communicate emergency information.

The page should have a decent number of fans in order to make the time spent updating the page worthwhile. An ad buy may be needed to advertise the page to current and potential customers on Facebook. Signs should be placed in the business (on the door or by the cash register) to let customers know they can follow the business on Facebook.

Each business Facebook page should include a square profile image of the business logo, larger cover image, full contact information, and hours of operation. If staff uses Facebook regularly, Facebook Messaging should be turned on so that customers can contact the business directly through Facebook.

Instagram & Twitter

Both of these networks should be updated more regularly than Facebook. Instagram posts should be engaging images and utilize appropriate hashtags. Twitter content should be original, with appropriate hashtags, and not be linked to Facebook posts.

To build followers on Instagram and Twitter, it may be necessary to search for and follow potential customers based on interests, locations, or hashtags. Promoting the network inside the business will help current customers connect online.

Our Digital Assessments

Cygnet Strategies has worked with dozens of communities and small businesses in assessing digital marketing efforts. We offer Digital Marketing Assessment packages for individual businesses as well as communities. Contact us to see how we can help your business with digital marketing.