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.

This information can be extremely valuable in determining where you want to spend resources in the future.

Social Network Referrals
Online marketing is based on an electronic ecosystem.  Your website’s success can depend on the social media activities that take place and the referring links that send visitors to your site.

Check out which social networks drive the most traffic.  For example, if LinkedIn is the top driver, should you be spending more time using that social network, or possibly improving activities with Twitter, Facebook and others?

Organic Keywords
Know what content on your site is drawing in website visitors.  Likely at the top of the list are versions of your company name and maybe the names of your associates.  Although important, look beyond those details.  Was there an article with a title or phrase that helped drive website traffic?

Learn from traffic drivers and continue using them again.  Also, experiment with other related keywords.  Know your target market and know what they are searching for.

For many firms they want local clients, so the site should be populated with regional terms.  For example, if an advisor is located in the Boston region, ‘Boston Financial Advisor’ should be used throughout the site, as that is what prospects might search for. 

Use Google Analytics to see which keywords are working.

Site Content
Do you know what your most popular pages are?  If not, this tool can show you.  It will rank all your pages.  Likely at the top of the list is your homepage, contact us page and about us section.  Then what is the most popular?

The page rankings provides fantastic insights into what your website visitors want to see.  It also might help you know what promotions are working.  Lastly, it can show you what pages are not working, which may allow an organization to free up time from creating more pages like them in the future.

User Flow
It is very interesting to see the flow of pages visitors take when clicking on different things on your website.  This mapping tool helps clarify what takes place with first, second and third interactions with your site.  Try to figure out why they take a path, based on what is offered on the site and how the drill-down pages are promoted. 

If the flow is ideal, what can you do to enhance it?  If it is not ideal, what can you do to fix it?

Date Ranges
By setting different timeframes it is easy to look at one year compared to another.  Or maybe one month compared to another month.  It is possible to set any date range you wish and compare it to another period in time.

This information allows marketers to see if new initiatives are working better than what has been done in the past.  Or the opposite can be true, showing that more recent marketing efforts are underperforming, maybe due to inactivity or not keeping up with trends. 

For example, how has your site traffic changed since Google's mobile-friendly algorithm update?  (Read why your website might need to be improved.)

If you are not a user of Google Analytics, your website designer needs to take a simple code and put it on the backend of your site. 

For those that start using Google Analytics because of this article, beware:  looking at your website’s metrics can become addictive– especially if you are doing the right things and seeing improvements each time you log in. 

The most amazing thing about Google Analytics is that it is free.  Those that use this tool are much more likely to make smarter marketing decisions that will improve their online success!

Mike Byrnes is a national speaker and owner of Byrnes Consulting, LLC. His firm provides consulting services to help advisors become even more successful. Need help with business planning, marketing strategy, business development, client service and management effectiveness? Read more at ByrnesConsulting.com and follow @ByrnesConsultin.