188. Stop Checking Website Stats That Don’t Help You Make Better Decisions

You know that feeling when you open up your website analytics, and you are immediately overwhelmed by charts and graphs and numbers that might as well be in a foreign language. And then you close it right back up, because, honestly, who has time to figure out what all of that means? Or, maybe on the flip side, you just don't even open your analytics, because you know that's how you're going to feel. Well today I am going to help you cut through some of all the noise and focus on just a couple of numbers that actually show if your website is helping real people understand what you do, trust you, and decide to reach out or purchase.

We're talking about practical stats for practical business owners who just want to know if their website is doing a good job. I've noticed something about small businesses. Most established business owners have figured out what they're selling. What they haven't figured out is what to focus on to actually grow.

That's what we're here for. Welcome to Small Business Savvy. I'm Kristin Doyle, and around here, we talk about business systems, website strategy, simplified marketing, and the strategic decisions that grow your business. If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start building smarter, let's go.

So let's start with talking about what makes statistics actually worth looking at. The thing is, a stat only matters if it actually helps you decide something and take action. We don't want to track everything we can just because the numbers are available. It's great that Google Analytics is doing that for us, but there's no point in spending time looking at and digging into those numbers, if it's not going to actually help us.

So ask yourself, what would I do differently based on this particular statistic, this number? If this number goes up or if this number goes down, what would I change? What would I do differently in my business? And if the answer is nothing, then ignore that one for now.

A great example of this is things like the total amount of traffic to your website. It's honestly a vanity metric at best. It feels good if the number is high, it feels bad if the number is low, and unless you are chasing some sort of paid advertising placements or affiliate dollars, where you need to meet certain traffic thresholds, it really doesn't matter how many total people are viewing your website. Because if they're not the right people, and if your website's not speaking to them the right way, and if you're not getting leads from people who want to work with you or getting purchases of your products, then all the traffic isn't doing you any good.

It's not actually a win. So let's talk about what businesses should actually be tracking. For service businesses specifically, the best stats are the ones that show what people are doing before they reach out to you. Here are some that are worth paying attention to.

Where are visitors coming to you from? That can tell you which marketing channels are actually working for your business. Is your social media worth it? Are you getting tons of traffic from old pins on Pinterest?

Is your email list working? Is Google search sending you lots of people? Where are your visitors actually coming from? That way, you know where to focus most of your marketing energy.

Which pages do they visit first? This tells you where you need to put most of your focus when it comes to updating and optimizing pages. And we'll talk in the next episode about what to do with those pages that are getting the most traffic. The third thing to look at is specifically, are they reaching your contact page or your booking form or request page?

Whatever you have, that one specific action that you want most of your visitors to take, are they getting to that page? If you sell products, this would be, did they reach the product sales page? You can track those numbers using the user flows that I talked about in episode 187, and then, like I said, we'll talk about what to do with this information in episode 189. And then the last question is, what device are they mostly using?

Are most of your visitors coming from mobile, or are they mostly on desktop or tablet? And is your site really optimized for a great user experience on the device that's most popular for your users? See, we can look at generic stats and know that more and more people are using mobile devices, but depending on your niche, you might see different stats in your specific area. So check to see what device people are using, and make sure that you really are optimizing your site for that device.

Keep your stats really practical when it comes to this stuff. The biggest questions are, are people finding you? Are they viewing the right pages that help them decide to work with you or to buy your stuff? Are they moving closer to reaching out or making a purchase, and are they able to use your site easily on whatever device they are typically using?

Those are the big questions that you need to be answering with your analytics. Now, I already said that total traffic by itself is a vanity metric, but let's talk a little bit more about that specifically, because traffic itself is a lot less important than traffic that's taking an actual useful action on your site. Local service businesses don't need random traffic. They need the right people to show up and then take the right next step.

So if you are a local service business, then less traffic with better inquiries or more calls booked is better than getting tons and tons of traffic with no action taken at all. Let's talk about some examples of those specifically. If you are a home inspector, then you don't need a million people coming to view your site. You need a good solid handful of people who are about to buy a house showing up to your site, trusting you and booking an inspection.

If you're a cabinet builder, you need people who are thinking about replacing their cabinets to show up at your site. Understand whether or not you do the type of project that they're thinking about, realize that you can be trusted to do a good job, and then they reach out. If you run an in person studio, whether it's a pottery studio or fitness classes or whatever, people need to show up to your website, know what you offer and be able to find classes or dates or booking info, your hours, your location.

How are they finding those things on your site? And then, for those of you who do sell products on your website, the same basic point matters for you too. You don't need millions of people showing up, even to your product listings, you need people showing up who are interested in the thing that you sell. So where are they coming from and what are they doing after they get there?

Here's your action step for this week. I want you to start doing a simple monthly check on your analytics. Most of us really don't need to be checking our analytics more than once a month, and I like to do it at the very beginning of a new month during my CEO day. Go look at these things.

Number one, your top traffic sources. This is all in Google Analytics, by the way. Go look at your top traffic sources. Where are people coming to you from?

Are they coming from Google search? Are they coming from a direct link in something like your email list? Are they coming through one of your social media channels, a LinkedIn post? Where are people finding you?

Number two, what are your top five pages? Those five pages on your site that the most people are visiting. Bring those with you to next week's episode where we'll talk about what to do with them. Number three, look at your contact or your book a call page visit.

Even if those are not in your top five pages, go specifically check your page views for those whatever that primary action is that you want people to take on your site. How many people are actually getting there, and where are they coming from? Are they landing on that page from social media or somewhere outside your website, or are they coming there from other pages on your site? And then, how are people getting to those pages?

How many of them are actually booking calls with you or sending an email. Whatever the action is on those pages that you want them to take, that conversion rate, how many people are viewing that page to how many people are taking the action, is what tells you how well your site is actually doing at turning people from just casually interested to actually reaching out to you. And then, number four, check your mobile experience. So look to see what devices people are mostly using when they access your site, and then check your site and make sure you're optimized on that device.

When I say check your site on that device, I don't mean using a simulator on your desktop browser. Those are great for quick checks. But what I mean is, if most of your people are coming from mobile, get your phone and click around your entire site on your phone. Ideally, do this on an Apple and an Android device.

Ask a friend or a neighbor to borrow their phone, ask your parents, your kids, your spouse, whoever has a different type of phone than you, and make sure your site is looking good and working well on both types of devices. Same thing goes for tablets. If most people are coming to your site on a tablet, pull out an iPad and an Android tablet. And check out what your site looks like on those devices.

The other thing to keep in mind is how your device looks on different screen sizes, even on desktop. I personally use two pretty big monitors. They are widescreen, 27 inch, I think, monitors as my daily monitors, and I have to remember to check how things look on my laptop, on my MacBook, because it is a much smaller screen. So pull out actual devices and look at your site on different devices.

And then once you've looked through those four things, pick one page on your site to improve. Whether it is one of those top five pages or maybe it's your contact or your book a call page, pick one page that you need to make some improvements on. Don't try to overhaul your entire website or even the full page. Make one or two really useful fixes to whatever's going on with that page.

If one of your top five pages doesn't have a link to book a call with you, or to get to your products and your shop, then that is a big helpful change you can make. Something that is super easy to implement, but it makes a really big difference. So look for things like that and make just one useful fix on your site this week. Keep in mind, analytics are not about obsessing over numbers.

There is no need to become a data nerd, but it is super helpful to notice and understand where people are interested, where they get confused, maybe where they drop off on your website. Once you understand that data, you can start making better decisions about what to put on your site, how to design things, what kind of words to use, and really getting your site to work that much better for you. Now, if you're ready to stop guessing about what your website needs and start making decisions based on what is actually happening, I would love to help you with that on a free website game plan call.

We'll look at what is working, what is getting in the way, and what I would fix for you first, you can book that call at kristendoyle.co/gameplan. I'll talk to you soon.