We often tell our clients that the best thing about online marketing is that it’s easy to track if tactics are working well or not.
However, many advisors do not take the needed time to review their marketing strategy on a regular basis to see what needs to be improved or reinforced.
A free tool like Google Analytics can help. Here are eight things to use:
Bounce Rate
Are your website visitors going to your site and bouncing right off? A low bounce rate means they are clicking on multiple pages on your site and often that is a very good thing. If you have a high bounce rate, your site is likely not impressing the people coming to check it out, or at a minimum it is not teasing them into wanting to click on other things.
It is OK to have a high bounce rate if people are being sent to something like a registration page. A simple page like that should give them everything they need. Otherwise, especially with your prospects, you want them clicking on multiple pages to build stronger virtual relationships.
Average Session Duration
Without looking at the actual number, create an assumption in your head of how long you would like people on your site when they come to visit it. Then compare your prediction versus what is actually happening. Most of our clients are initially surprised to see that their current site is not holding the attention of a website visitor and that the session durations are a fraction of what they want them to be.
Sometimes website owners have unrealistic expectations. Other times they just need education on what is normal and then they can compare against that benchmark, striving to improve moving forward.
The take away with this data is that you have limited time to impress a prospect and your site should work to get them what they need, encouraging them to want more information. Set a goal and keep track that your site is delivering the results you want.
Source/Medium and Referrals
Find out where traffic is coming from at a higher level. Do your visitors come directly from search engines? Or do they come from published content (in other words: online PR)?
For example, there are links in this article to ByrnesConsulting.com. With Google Analytics it is possible to see where FA-Mag.com ranks against other referring sites.