Many small businesses think of web analytics as search engine optimization, but that perspective is a partial view. Analytics encourages the organization of a digital presence for a business or an organization. These days such planning is important. It means providing speedy management of marketing content, be it online or off, such that a business can ultimately manage costs.
Some small businesses analyze results from a campaign effort - after a website is launched, a video is uploaded in YouTube, or a Facebook page is launched. This is an understandable step - many businesses see analytics in an application and treat the analysis as an audit. But the real work happens during the preliminary planning of a digital presence. This can consume some time, particularly now with so many options for a small business to choose. A business should review two aspects first before tweet or a site visit is measured.
1. What is the purpose of the website in the business model? Does it serve as an augment for offline marketing? Is it for sales through e-Commerce? Is it a way to deliver customer support through online chats and community hosting? Answering these questions will set the tone for what content should be on the site - images, downloads, and which pages should retain visitors for longer than a moment. Even trust badges can be influential (see my Business Agility post Building Trust Through Transparency). It will also lead to how a site and its subdomains are set. The end result is the arrangement of how a site should be tagged.
2. What marketing is planned? Thanks to QR codes and URL tagging, for example, small businesses can create marketing plans to anticipate how customers discover the company site, and ultimately the business itself. Experian, eMarketer, and other research firms have indicators that people tend to review products and services online prior to making a purchase. The ideas is establishing an reasonable assumption of how your business is exposed to leads and customers. An assumption may change overtime, but that is reasonable given that marketing materials can become outdated over time.
Once these two steps are addressed, a small business can begin to make reasonable adjustments to a marketing plan with few headaches and reduced expense. There are still some technical verifications needed, depending on the complexity of the site and tagging required - many large enterprises have a team on analytic experts to manage the effort. But for small businesses developing a plan and monitoring as it moves ahead makes any analytics information valuable.
[...] Analytics boosts small business. It doesn’t matter how small your business may be. Analytics can provide an edge that will transform everything. Understanding the benefits of analytics for your small business is the key to moving into a whole new world of competitiveness. Zimana Blog [...]
[...] Analytics boosts small business. It doesn’t matter how small your business may be. Analytics can provide an edge that will transform everything. Understanding the benefits of analytics for your small business is the key to moving your business into a whole new world of competitiveness. Zimana Blog [...]
You're absolutely right about building trust, and the web is one of the most transparent tool out there. That's part of the impetus for creating our startup, http://www.mosaicHUB.com an online platform and community for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
mosaicHUB, like your blog, provides excellent resources and advice for people looking to build a better business.
If you are interested, we'd love to have you join the mosaicHUB community (it's completely free), post these amazing blog posts/resources and generate more traffic for your website by connecting with entrepreneurs and other service providers.
Cheers,
Stephen