Inbound marketing has become a popular method for website marketing because it is effective, if you use data analysis to drive the process and evaluate the results. Inbound marketing uses content marketing, first, to interest consumers, or other businesses, in your products or services, using published content, eBooks, articles, blogs, social media monitoring, videos with SEO.
A good website that defines your business and draws users in is important, because users will leave your website within 10 to 20 seconds unless they find a good reason to stay, unless they identify with your message. A compelling blog and dynamic content can give your prospects an exceptional experience, a reason to stay and perhaps a reason to return.
Source: Construction Marketing Association
Company websites that blog, generate 67% more leads than those that do not.
The key elements for successful inbound marketing strategies are three-fold:
- Getting your website found
- Maximizing conversions
- Improving your results through effective data analysis
Collecting relevant data is most important in your marketing effort, assuming that performance data analysis follows. Website analytics require you decide the most important metrics to track, and evaluate your successes or failures based on what the metrics reveal. It also means the possibility of altering your marketing strategies, if you are not meeting your goals.
Tracking too many metrics is not fruitful either. Instead, focusing on the most important statistics, only a few, some even suggest tracking just one metric.
Metrics that Matter
The metrics should be contingent upon the goals of your site and your business. Most website goals are reasonably synonymous. Measuring bounce rate and finding that it is over 50 percent, where bounce rate measures percentage of visitors who enter your website and leave from the same page without any interaction, is usually not a good thing. A bounce rate less than 20 percent is considered good. But identifying that users are leaving immediately is not always obvious.
Reasons for a High Bounce Rate
Traditional display ads are not effective online. But sometimes, when well placed, pop-ups can yield an increase in conversions. Conversions are when visitors are converted to leads and ultimately become paying customers.
Identifying a high bounce rate may suggest one or more of the following:
- People don't like seeing ads constantly; they find pop-ups annoying.
- Your website is poorly designed, too difficult to use and navigate.
- Takes too long to load - site is overloaded with multimedia files.
- Lack of mobile formats means smart phones cannot gain access, making your site too limited
If you sell goods or services, measuring how many sales are completed relative to the number of visitors, is telling. If too many visitors are not completing a sale, the question becomes, what is blocking visitors from becoming leads?
User experience (UX) is key. If the user experience is lacking, there won't be a repeat visit. Loyal customers are derived from a positive user experience, and conversions are made from a positive UX.
Metrics that matter, include the following:
- Total traffic - number of visitors, where they come from, from social medial and/or search engines
- Bounce Rate - time on your site and where they navigated
- Build inbound links with authoritative sources
- Lead conversions
- Close ratio - percent of leads that finalize with sales
- ROI - Return on investment
Although not a complete listing, relevant metrics, descriptions and more details of interest can be found here: 12 Valuable Inbound Marketing Metrics You Need to be Analyzing
Useful analysis is half the job. Use free Google Analytics or one of many free or paid software marketing analytics options. Ensuring you draw-in prospective customers, by building an enticing blog, has the potential to add to your customer base.
