Making Sense of Web Analytics

It can be overwhelming to look at the different stats available for your website’s performance, and to figure out not only what all of them mean but also how to use them to the best advantage of your business.

Web analytics provide valuable information that can ultimately help you learn how to increase sales for your dealership. Let us help you get to the bottom of these statistics - Here we break down the top 5 web analytics to look at and how to best interpret the information that is available to you.

1. Visits Summary
   • These stats show you when the busiest times of the day and week are for your website, as well as the kind of activity that takes place when Internet users visit your website. The most important things to pay attention to include Unique Visitors (how many individual Internet users came to your site), Actions Per Visit (the average number of actions such as clicks or downloads performed by each visitor), and the Bounce Rate (how many times a visitor left your site without clicking on anything).
   • It goes without saying that a summary of your website’s performance should be your first stop. Use this to get the full picture, and then dive in deeper as needed.
2. Site Search Keywords
   • This information tells you what keywords people used in search engines that brought them to your website. Keywords are the words or phrases Internet users typed in that described your site (example: “motorcycle dealership new york city”). Percentage of Search Exits tells you how often those visitors left your website, dissatisfied with how closely your website content matches the result they were looking for.
   • Knowing what keywords best fit your website is good – knowing what keywords best fit your website AND are most commonly used by search engine users is ideal. That’s what you can learn by looking at your site search keywords stats. Find out which keywords DO NOT fit your website by looking at the percentage of search exits – this will help you determine how to best satisfy the needs of your potential customers.
3. Referrer Terms
   • These terms tell you where your website visitors are coming from. The four main referrer types include Direct Entry (visitor clicks to your website from an e-newsletter or a paid search ad), Campaigns (visitor clicks to your website from a marketing campaign you are running), Search Engines (visitor clicks to your website from Google, Yahoo, Bing, or any other search engine), and Websites (visitor clicks to your website from a link on another website).
   • It’s simple – determine which resources are bringing the most traffic to your website. Should you invest more time and money into search engine optimization or daily e-newsletters? Which referrer types are yielding the most results? Test the waters and adjust your strategy accordingly.
4. Conversion Rate
   • A conversion means that an online user clicked on one of your online ads and took an action on your website that is valuable to you (example: submitting a lead for a bike unit).
   • Conversion Rate is calculated by # of conversions divided by # of total clicks that resulted in a conversion. This percentage tells you how well you are capturing actions that are valuable to your business, i.e. how well your ad is performing.
   • How effective are your online ads? Don’t waste money – a low conversion rate means your ad is not performing up to par.
5. Device Type
   • This information tells you what device Internet users typically use to access your website. This is usually a desktop computer, smartphone, or tablet. In addition to device type, you can also see number of visits, number of unique visitors, number of actions, average number of actions per visit, average time spent on your website, bounce rate, and conversion rate.
   • How is this information useful to you? Let’s say your website is not yet responsive, meaning that users do not get the same experience visiting your website on a mobile device as they would on a desktop computer. In that case you may see that although you are getting a high amount of visits on mobile devices, the users are spending much less time and performing less actions, giving you a higher bounce rate and a lower conversion rate on mobile devices. Based on this information, you can see that it’s likely that your non-responsive website is losing potential conversions on your website, which could have turned into sales.

Dealer Spike offers a number of services that can help to improve all of the statistics listed above. For more information and a demonstration of how we can help your dealership website with Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and building a Responsive Website, email us at sales@dealerspike.com.