Growing your website traffic is an essential part of running a business. With a steady flow of visitors coming to your site, your sales and marketing funnels will be filled with prospects and potential customers to engage. However, attracting visitors is a challenge unto itself and requires constant work.

There are two broad approaches you can take to grow your web traffic. The first is to advertise and promote your website across relevant channels, such as social media or third-party sites. Although this is a vital component of your business and marketing strategy, doing so requires a financial investment and can quickly become a costly endeavor.

The second approach involves analyzing your website and how your users navigate it. The insights gleaned from this analysis can lead to breakthrough strategies that attract more people.

This requires less of a financial investment as it does an investment of time, but it can be far more worthwhile in the long run as you develop a deeper understanding of how your customers and prospects are using your site.

• How to Use Analytics and Insights to Maximize Website Revenue Streams
• How do you Generate Data from Insights?
• How can Web Analytics help a Business?
• Which Tool helps you Measure the Success of your Website?

How to Use Analytics and Insights to Maximize Website Revenue Streams

Now, let’s dive into how you can use data, analytics, and insights to improve your site and grow your web traffic and also maximize website revenue stream.

Getting to know your data

Data is the cornerstone of this strategy, and it’s imperative that you become familiar with what data to look for, how to find it, and what it means. Most content management systems offer basic analytics for data collection.

Read Also: How Best to Optimize your Website

You can also pull this information from platforms such as the AddThis Analytics platform or Google Analytics, which allow you to track how, where, and with whom your content is being shared.

Pulling data is one thing; understanding what it means and how to use that information is entirely different. Without a proper understanding of basic website data, it’s difficult to know which metrics are worth tracking and what is worth ignoring.

A good place to start is focusing on referrals, most visited pages, and keywords. Here’s how you can use all three data sources to improve the performance of your site.

Referrals reveal the sites that have sent the most traffic to your website. They tell you where your audience is coming from, which can help you focus your marketing campaigns.

Doubling down on referral traffic

Knowing which channels and sites are driving the most traffic means you know where to focus your attention. Have you ever heard of the Pareto Principle?

It’s the idea that 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes, and that focusing on the 20 percent yields more results. In web traffic terms, that means focusing heavily on optimizing the 20 percent of sites that are generating the most traffic.

Side Hustle Nation, a blog for helping people grow their own businesses, used this tactic to increase their traffic from Pinterest 25x in 60 days. They recognized that this platform was giving them the highest reach and dove headfirst into building a strategy to augment their efforts on that channel. It pays to focus on an area that’s already showing promise for your brand!

Top visited pages tell you the pages on your website that are getting the most views and engagement. You can use this information to find out what content is resonating with your audience so you can create more of it or expand the best-performing pages to drive more engagement.

Giving your top visited pages a refresh

Once you’ve identified the pages that are yielding the best results in terms of traffic and engagement, it’s time to ramp up their success.

Here’s a checklist of things to tick off when updating top-performing pages:

1. Call-to-action: Ensure your top pages all feature a relevant call-to-action (CTA). If you’re using paid advertisements, make sure your CTA is aligned to the ad. If you’re advertising a free consultation, your CTA should be signing them up for the call. Having a strong CTA will help you increase your conversion rates.
2. Page load times: Load time has a huge impact on traffic. In fact, if pages don’t load within three seconds, roughly 40 percent of users will leave your site. Test to see if you can improve page load times to make sure you’re not missing out on additional traffic. You can speed up your website’s load time a number of ways, including choosing the right hosting option for your needs and removing unnecessary external scripts.
3. Optimize for mobile: Are your top-performing pages ideal for a mobile environment? If so, consider converting them into to help speed up load times. Check out our guide on how to do so.
4. Optimize the metadata: Metadata tells search engines what your page is about, so it’s critical you get it right. Ensure your meta information is up to date on all your pages— include relevant keywords in page descriptions, and ensure alt tags are filled out and captions are included for images. These are simple steps you can take to increase the visibility of your page.

Keywords are those terms that visitors are using to search for a site such as yours. Knowing this information means you can create keyword-rich content that ensures your site is appearing at the top of search results.

Creating a keyword-rich site

Filling your site with relevant keywords is one of the best things you can do to increase web traffic. And the good thing is, it doesn’t require any additional cost.

Here’s what to do: Compile a list of the keywords that your visitors are using to search for and find your site. Augment this list through keyword research, using online tools to identify similar ones that your audience is using during its search.

This research will reveal insights into these search terms, such as how often people are searching for the keyword and how competitive it is to rank for.

This list should give you a strong indication of the keywords that will drive the most traffic to your site. Then it’s up to you to take the best-performing keywords and make sure they organically appear across your site and in the metadata.

However, it’s important to make sure that there’s a balance between keywords and content, as Google penalizes sites that try to game the system by overloading keywords.

When you conduct a thorough analysis of all the data sources listed above, you should have a better understanding of the types of content your audience is looking for.

Referral traffic shows where visitors are coming from, the top-performing pages show what they’re most interested in, and the keywords reveal what they’re looking for in search engines. When you combine all this together, you should be able to develop a strong user persona that will lay the foundation for a content strategy.

With this persona in mind, consider the problems and challenges your users face, and the types of content you can create to serve their needs. When you build your site to serve the needs of your persona, you should start to see an increase in web traffic.

Don’t let the data overwhelm you

To organically increase your web traffic, you need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your site, and which areas you need to optimize for success. Spending the time to dive into your site’s data and analytics is a crucial first step for developing this understanding.

The good news is, this information is at your fingertips, especially with dashboards such as AddThis Analytics. And remember, there’s no need to be overwhelmed by all the data—begin by developing the above-mentioned insights and you’ll be on the right path to success.

How do you Generate Data from Insights?

Being able to collect the right data is one thing, but making it extremely useful requires a different skill- and mindset.

Based on surveying 49 Analytics experts we have compiled a list of the top 10 strategies to turn data into actionable insights.

1. Measure the right things

You can’t optimize what you don’t measure. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Every business is different and should be treated in a unique way.

Let’s assume you run an e-commerce site. In this case, you probably want to know:

• Which channels drive the most conversions?
• What are your leaking buckets (places where people leave your website)?
• Whether people use multiple devices before purchasing your products?
• What are the look-to-buy ratios for your individual products and product categories?
• What landing pages need to be improved and in which channel?

You need to think in advance about what is important for your business. It all starts with a

2. Ask the right questions to stakeholders

Go the extra mile to answer all of your stakeholderís questions. This means tapping into the stakeholderís aspirations and challenges by asking the right questions.

It’s a must to formulate a clear business question before you start your next data analysis. You can easily waste hours of your time by getting lost in your data. And coming up with “insights” that are already known or not deemed important can be highly frustrating as well!

3. Use segmentation to drive action

Go for segmentation if you want to take action on your data! By grouping visitors that have some attributes in common, you can start digging deeper. Choosing which segments to study depends on the business question you are trying to answer.

Identifying segments will greatly enhance your understanding of how your customers behave. You can use this information for setting up an optimization plan.

Digital analytics tools like Google Analytics come with a lot of built-in segments and provide you with all the freedom to customize them to your needs.

4. Use clear visualizations to convey your message

The way in which you present your data will make a huge difference in the outcome. Do you remember these presentations that only include numbers and words? And this compared to clear visualizations that promote cognition instead of confusion.

It’s important to articulate a data story with as much what, how and why behind it. This will turn your data into insights and profitable business decisions.

5. Discover the context of your data set

Everyone has got data and their own personal data-driven insight (opinion). In most cases, a superior understanding of context leads to the best decisions. Make sure to establish context for the data you are seeing. What do these numbers mean? Are they important? Does it really affect the business? And how is the data collected?

Data without context isn’t that meaningful and can actually lead to bad business decisions because of interpreting it in the wrong way!

6. Build a solid optimization plan

Use the “Define Measure Analyze Improve Control” process (DMAIC) to improve your business. It’s one of the Six Sigma concepts you can directly apply in your situation.

In short, it comes down to:

• Define the problem or hypothesis, stakeholders and scope of analysis.
• Measure relevant data and conduct basic analysis to spot anomalies.
• Analyze correlations and patterns, put your statistics and visualization skills to work.
• Improvement based on insights and showing several options to explore.
• Control the change by deploying (A/B) tests and monitoring KPIs.

7. Construct a great hypothesis

A clearly articulated hypothesis is the start of any “analysis”. And the hypothesis should have the potential to drive action. Come up with your hypothesis by completing two fill-in-the-blank statements: 1) I believe __________. (this is the hypothesis), and 2) If I am right, we will __________. (this is the qualification).

Formulating these statements isn’t always easy, but you will save a ton of time wandering through your data and coming up with interesting – but not actionable – findings.

8. Integrate data sources

The integration of data sources leads to better and faster business decisions. Think about integrating traditional databases with big data solutions (like Hadoop). Mining through and connecting all your sources will enhance your customer understanding and can deliver great insights.

9. Break down organizational silos

A healthy organization is the foundation of everything. Communication instead of confrontation. Inspire, motivate and be curious about the data and the possibilities it has for your organization. Treat any obstacles first and improve the communication between the business and analytics leaders.

10. Don’t forget to hire smart people

Tools can collect data, but people – who understand the business – build insights. Smart people are required to find the useful data, translate it into data-driven stories of useful knowledge – the insights. It’s a team effort where combining internal business experts with external analysts might be your best bet.

So what next?

Each of the strategies described above can help you fine-tune your action plan for turning data into insights and profits for your business. You might want to pick a few strategies and first experiment with them. Find out what works best in your industry and situation and go from there.

How can Web Analytics help a Business?

Website analytics provide you with the actual reports and analytics on how your site visitors behave once on your website; who they are by their age, gender, location, etc.; how they landed on your site (traffic source); the most popular content on your site; your total conversions; and so on.

With this information in hand, you can plan fully informed business strategies and grow your business faster. Let us see the major reasons why website analytics are important for your business growth.

1. Get to Know Your Visitors Well and Enhance User Experience

When it comes to making big (or small) business decisions, it’s important to ensure your decision doesn’t hurt your existing customers, but rather enhances their user experience. It’s more rewarding if it can attract more new users. So, to make a safe and informed decision, you’ll need to know your visitors first.

When you know who your site visitors are by their age, gender, geographic location, interest topics, etc., you can take proper measures to enhance their user experience. Similarly, when you learn about the technology (device, operating system, and browsers) they’re using to browse your site, you can test your site’s compatibility with those technologies and make necessary improvements.

For example, let’s consider how the popular website analytics tool MonsterInsights helps you improve your site’s overall user experience.

• Device breakdown: If a large section of your visitors are using mobile device, it’s a clear message that you should make your site mobile-friendly.
• Language and location: You can see where most of your users are located and create translations for your site if it’s required.
• Age and Interest Categories: When you identify the actual age and interest group as your larger section of audience, you can customize your site so as to make it more useful to them.

With these improvements, you can make your site audience stay longer and ultimately turn them into customers.

2. Know Your Best Content and Focus on It

Website analytics tools like Google Analytics and MonsterInsights show you exactly which content gets the most visits, average duration, and bounce rate for the individual pages, so you can analyze, and optimize, for better engagement.

You can add more call to action (CTA) buttons, purchase links, etc. on the top pages of your site and boost your conversions.

Similarly, you can update the top landing pages with the latest information or revamp their whole design and structure to make them look fresh and updated.

In addition, you can learn what type of content works and what doesn’t. That way, you can focus on the type of content getting more visits to boost your site engagement and gain more customers.

3. It Helps Your Site’s SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most crucial aspects in determining your business growth. The more organic traffic your business site receives, the more leads and conversions it gains.

Website analytics help your site’s SEO in various ways. By knowing your visitors’ demographics and interests, you can create targeted content and get better visibility on search engines. Furthermore, you can gain some insights on backlinks by tracking your referrals.

Moreover, using MonsterInsights and Google Analytics, you can connect your Analytics account with Google Search Console and track what search queries are sending you the most traffic. It provides you with the actual data of total clicks, impressions, average click-through rate (CTR), and average position.

You can also set up site search tracking and track what your visitors are looking for on your site. Using this option in Google Analytics, you can compare between your existing content and what users are looking for, and check whether users’ expectations are being met or not. Bonus: It also provides you with new topic ideas for your blog, if you have one.

4. Track Top Referrals and Build Strategies to Gain More of Them

Using website analytics, you can track who referred most traffic to your business site, analyze, and focus on strategies to gain more referrals from them.

For example, if your site receives most traffic from search engines, it means your site SEO is strong. Now with little extra effort, you can improve your website’s online visibility and gain more traffic than ever before.

5. Utilize Your Top Outbound Links as Partnership Opportunities

Website analytics not only give you insight into your site referrals but also whom you are referring to or the outbound links. Using Google Analytics or MonsterInsights, you can view the top links clicked on your website that go to other websites, analyze, and reach out to those websites with partnership offers.

You can see many businesses grow out of collaborations with other related businesses through mutual recommendations and cross-promotions. Looking for the right business partner, reaching out, and asking for partnership can’t be easy until you have a clue regarding exactly what works for the partnership.

So, using Google Analytics outbound links reports, you show can show other business owners exactly what works between the two businesses and easily persuade them into partnerships.

6. Easily Track Your eCommerce Metrics and Utilize Them for More Sales

Whether you are selling physical products, software, or online services, the sales report is the most important report you should get to know. Thankfully, website analytics tools like Google Analytics and MonsterInsights show you all your important eCommerce metrics like total revenue, conversion rates, top products, top referral sources, etc. in a single report.

Then, with the exact idea of who is referring you most sales, you can create strategies to gain even more.

Setting up eCommerce tracking is very easy for WordPress sites using MonsterInsights eCommerce addon. With just a few clicks, you can enable this option and view your most important eCommerce data.

Which Tool helps you Measure the Success of your Website?

Everyone measures success in their lives differently, but if you have a website, knowing what you should measure and monitor can mean the difference between success and failure. There are some fundamental metrics that you should monitor and know what they mean – ignore these at your peril.

The web moves at light speed so the quicker you identify problems on your website, the quicker you can find a solution and start achieving your goals. Here are some fundamental metrics and what they mean to help you improve your website.

• Bounce rate – this is the number of people who land on your website and then leave before investigating further. This can mean that the page they land on does not engage them sufficiently or is not informative enough, for them to bother remaining on your website. It can also mean that they landed on your website by mistake – but a high bounce rate is a worry.
• Unique visitors – this is the number of individuals who visited your website at least once during the reporting period. If the visitor comes to your site multiple times during the reporting period, it is only counted once. This gives you an idea of your website’s audience size during the period under review and is more accurate than purely visits or page views as one visitor may come multiple times and view lots of pages even though they represent one potential customer.
• Exit pages – this is the page your visitor was on when they left your site. Pages with high exit rates help identify weaknesses in your site. Users are leaving these pages for some reason. Whether they’ve read something they don’t like or there simply wasn’t a clear next step for them to take, reviewing and updating these exit pages can help increase conversions.
• Referral websites – this metric tells you where your visitors came from, in other words, where they referred from a search engine, Facebook, or government site for example. Knowing the referral pathways can help you target your marketing campaigns to these pathways (great for SEO) or even to the types of consumers who frequent the referral sites.
• Keywords – this tells you the keywords visitors’ type into search engines that lead to your website and is a great way to target a specific audience. You can also identify which keywords visitors type into the search box on your website, which helps determine your most popular content and also the content visitors are looking for and which you don’t have on your website. Keywords from search engines are increasingly becoming less available.
• Time on website – this tells you the average time visitors spend on your website. You can see which pages people are spending the most and the least time on to help you identify the content that people are most and least interested in. Addressing the content on these pages can help improve conversions.
• Conversion rate – this is the percentage of people who landed on your website and purchased your products or services, donated money or subscribed to your e-newsletter. Whatever the goal of your website – the conversion rate tells you the percentage of consumers who performed this action. Low conversion rates can indicate that the offer you provide is not compelling enough, the content may not be resonating or the visitors you’re attracting is not the right traffic.

The metrics discussed above could help you fine-tune your marketing campaigns to better achieve your goals and increase your ROI. Let’s say you have two separate product pages (pages that provide more information about products). The Time on Website for Page A is quite high while it’s a bit lower for Page B.

Explore: How to Scale Your WordPress Website

Compare both pages and determine why one is more successful than the other. Is the copy on Page A more engaging? Are you using more images or did you break down the copy using headings? Identifying why one page is performing better and attempt to replicate its success with your other pages.

One of the most popular ways to measure your website is Google Analytics. It’s a free tool that measures all the elements we mentioned above, and it even has a comprehensive dashboard that lets you easily analyse and export data. If you’re unsure how to start using Google Analytics, Google has free courses for beginners and advanced learners.

Finally

You can pick ways that work for all kinds of websites or choose from a specific type of site. And if you want, you can use some of the ways together to maximize your chances of converting visitors and ultimately maximize your website revenue streams