Statistical analysis.
What a terrifying phrase. For most former students it conjures up horrifying memories of a college professor and an endless chalkboard filled with numbers and formulas. If that sentence hasn’t sent you spiraling into a boredom-induced coma please bear with me. I’m going to demonstrate how analyzing your web statistics can enhance your company’s marketing strategies, both online and offline. With only minimal effort, your company can use web statistic analysis to gauge the effectiveness of its marketing campaigns and understand the demographics of its customers, leading to a more appealing bottom line.. The best part is that this can be done without going anywhere near one of those gut-wrenching formulas. Luckily for those of us who slacked off during statistics class, there are a plethora of great programs to help us cheat our way to e-business euphoria. For this article, I will be focusing on the use of Google Analytics. Google offers an excellent full-featured web statistics program. It’s safe, easy to use, scalable and, best of all, free. Adding Google Analytics to your website is surprisingly straightforward: there’s no software required, and detailed instructions are available on the Google Analytics website.
Anyone wishing to dip into company funds for a program with a similar feature set can find dozens of great statistic programs currently on the market. One of my favorites is ClickTracks.
Modern Web statistics software has come a long way from the hit-counters that were a fixture on the early homepages. Today an astonishing amount of information can be gathered from the behavior of your site visitors. This data can reveal how customers are finding your site, determine what products or services they seek, understand the individual, and track how and from where they enter and exit your website. If you’re wondering how this information is useful, here is a quick scenario that demonstrates an effective way to utilize this information:

How this data is useful
I’m sure you are already well aware of the high cost of advertising. The ability to separate the effective methods from the less effective is invaluable to any businessperson. This helps your organization cut the fat and focus its budget on the most effective advertising solutions. The Site Overlay tool data can also easily determine what products or services are of interest to the site’s new visitors. This lets you target your advertisements and track URLs to convert those visitors into customers by tailoring the advertising scheme to focus on popular areas of your site. This simple strategy will enhance the effectiveness of your advertisements and maximize the return on your advertising investment. The same strategy we just discussed works well with both online and offline advertisements. For the moment, however, let’s say advertising isn’t in your budget. How can you use Web analytics to improve the effectiveness of your Web site? The following scenario will show you how Web analytics can increase your current sales with no additional advertising. Scenario: Let’s pretend your company sells three products/services: apples, oranges, and watermelons. Your Web site garners about 500 hits a day but sales have been stagnated for the past few weeks. How can you use web analytics to increase sales among your current Web visitors?
How it works
The key is in understanding your visitors and their demands. As in any market, the demand for online products and services is constantly shifting. What we need to do is understand which products or services visitors seek and ensure that the most relevant information is easily accessible. To do this we will use two tools offered by Google Analytics. The first is Overall Keyword Conversion, which lists what search terms people used to arrive at your site. The second is my personal favorite: the Site Overlay tool. As previously discussed, the Site Overlay tool illustrates how visitors navigate your website.
