Most marketers rely heavily on analytics to evaluate how their website and marketing tactics are performing. At TRBO, we utilize Google Analytics because of how robust the software is. You can configure lead tracking as well as use the data to make marketing decisions.
It’s important to note, however, that Google Analytics isn’t flawless. I don’t want to imply that their data is incorrect (although some of their integrated Webmaster Tools search position ranking info is questionable). The issue is more about how the data can be misleading, which emphasizes the importance of understanding exactly how Google tracks this information.
Here are a few statistics to be aware of:
1) Bounce Rate: Obviously we want as low of bounce rates as possible. What’s a good bounce rate? It’s tough to say, but anything around 50% or below is very good. Once you start getting to 60% and inch toward 70% you may want to look into this. The reason is say that you “may” want to be concerned is because the bounce rate can be misleading.
According to Google, the bounce rate is…
the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page without interacting with the page)
While we want patients to navigate through your website, it’s not necessarily a bad thing if they don’t. They could have found you, read the page they landed on, and then called in. That would be considered a bounce. Similarly, if someone visits the site, reads the page and then bookmarks it that’s also considered a bounce. Just keep this in mind when evaluating your bounce rate.
2) Average Time on Page: Like the bounce rate, the average time on a page data can be misleading. According to Google, this is the…
average amount of time users spent viewing a specified page or screen, or set of pages or screens
The issue is that this data is inaccurate if there is no engagement. By engagement I mean clicking a social plugin or clicking to read a blog article or another page. According to Moz, one of the leading SEO softwares and news sources, Google uses this formula to calculate the average time on a page to prevent issues where a visitor spends 10 minutes on a page (with no further engagement) and then leaves without his or her time being counted:
Average Time on Page: (Time on Page) / (Pageviews – Exits)
The biggest flaw here is that we’re relying on an averages. If 100% of the visitors to a given page stay for 10 minutes without any further interaction that would make the average time on that page 0:00. We want interaction because we want conversions, but that doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with the website if our average time on a page, or even the site itself, appears low. Just keep track of how it fluctuates over time for a relative comparison.
3) Conversion by Source: Google tracks conversions by giving credit to the last non-direct click to the website. This means that if a patient finds you through a Google search, then they click to your Real Self page, and then later they type in your domain name directly and convert, Real Self will get credit as the lead source.
The solution to this dilemma is to utilize Google’s Multi-Channel Funnels. Check out the ‘Assisted Conversions’, which will highlight the…
number of conversions for which this channel appeared on the conversion path, but was not the final conversion interaction
I also recommend checking out the ‘Top Conversion Path’ breakdown. Lastly, while Google won’t track keyword data for users who are logged in, it’s still worth creating a custom report to see if you can pull any keyword data from your web leads. Just go to ‘Customization’ and add your conversions attribute to the ‘Metric Group’ and then drill down to ‘Keyword’.
You should also keep an eye on reports from Google that analyze site speed and exit rates. With the site speed, Google only takes a small sample of total users to calculate this, which means their are many variables that can influence their data, such as slow wifi or a user with a virus on their computer. Lastly, for exit rates, just keep in mind that an exit might not necessarily be a bad thing. With patients becoming more informed than ever, many do a fair amount of research before making a decision, so just keep that in mind when evaluating exit rates.
If you’d like to learn more about Google Analytics check out our collection of articles here. Google also has many training tools available.
If you’d like to learn more about how you can improve your website’s performance and your marketing drop TRBO a line here or simply call us at 877-673-7096 x2.
