One of the most overlooked aspects of Internet marketing is reviewing the analytical data on how customers interact with a site. Before undertaking any Internet marketing strategy, it is essential to look at the data to determine what is, and what isn’t working on the site.

Most web hosting services have some sort of ‘stats’ data as part of your hosting service. If that is all you have, we highly recommend adding Google Analytics. Why Google? First of all, the service is free, and secondly, the data is far more comprehensive than the ‘stats’ data provided by the hosting service.

Regardless of the program you choose to measure website activity, they will help you discover:

How users find your site

Search Engines: To begin any Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign, it is essential to understand which search engines send traffic to your site and what keywords drive this traffic.

Direct Load: Direct load means that the customer typed in your web address. This metric allows you to understand how well your site is branded.

Referring Sites: By looking at which sites are sending you traffic, you can measure the impact of related websites, blogs and social media tools in delivering and sharing your content.

How users view your site

Top Content: Which pages are generating the most traffic? Understanding which pages engage users allows you to generate additional, targeted content.

Top Landing Pages: With people sharing links and search engines delivering to content relevant landing pages, we can no longer assume the home page is where people enter your site. If a user lands on an interior page, what is their experience?

Top Exit Pages: Where do people leave your site? Did they get the information they needed? Is there a better way of interacting with your site to encourage interaction?

That’s just a start. Analytic data goes much deeper into how your customers view your site, thus reviewing and understanding this data is a critical step in understanding your customers. The data is there, are you listening?