The Main Factors of an Effective Website Analytics Report

Website analytics reports mean it’s crunch time, baby; let’s see those numbers! 

An effective website analytic report allows your business to collect all of its data in one place. This allows you to analyse and evaluate your marketing efforts and online success through data analytics. 

Website analytics can boggle the brain. Analytics means dealing with numbers and data flying about everywhere, so it’s easy to feel overwhelmed (I know I do sometimes). 

This blog will discuss the main factors of an effective website analytics report. We are detailing how to use it to implement a more vital, more robust digital strategy.

What is a Website Analytics Report? 

A website analytics report provides valuable insights into how a website performs online. It tracks various key metrics, including website traffic, demographics of visitors, traffic sources, and how users behave on your website. This data is analysed using a website analytics report. This is to understand how a website performs and highlight the areas that need improvement. 

More Than 1.8 Million UK Websites Have Google Analytics. The data gained from these reports is crucial for businesses and marketers for a variety of reasons:

• It can help to inform future decisions.
• It can offer direction on how to optimise a website better.
• It can maximise their online search engine visibility. 

It also provides valuable insight into the behavioural trends of your target audience on your website. This can brief your team on what changes are necessary to improve the user experience on your website. 

The Main Factors to Consider When Creating an Effective Website Analytics Report? 

The key to a strong and informative website analytics report is to analyse, correlate and collect the data. A simple PDF export of a random Google Analytics tab will not cut it. 

Date Ranges

Date ranges are super important when creating an effective website analytics report. Firstly, setting the right date range can ensure no crossover of past reporting. It also means that you can accurately track any changes implemented in the correct time frame. This avoids confusing any past and present tactics. 

Comparing data to a previous time period shows if a client is improving and if a strategy is making a difference. Depending on the type of business and the strategy put in place, it would be worth considering what data to compare. This could be in the past year or month.  

You should consider the type of business that you are tracking analytics for. For example, a Christmas Grotto would likely receive more traffic as the festive season approaches. 

Sources

Your website analytics report should contain a larger view of performance. Include website engagement, conversion rate and overall traffic whilst breaking these down by source. Most marketing channels differ in volume and performance. So, you should break down channels like organic search, paid, display advertising and other sources, including social. 

This may show a low conversion rate, specifically from organic, but a higher conversion rate from paid search marketing. This information can help you spot the weaknesses and what is driving traffic to your website to optimise your marketing efforts accordingly. 

Go Beyond the Traffic

Your website analytics report should go beyond showcasing traffic visitors and engagement rates. It should also demonstrate clearly the positive or negative effects on ROI. 

You can measure the website’s analytical ROI through metrics such as goal completion and conversion rates. Make sure your website analytical reports show data that signified ROI, including leads, purchases and downloads.

Bounce Rates

Bounce rate is a critical metric used to measure the engagement of users on your website. The main purpose of your website is to showcase your business and what it offers and influence a user to convert (contact, subscribe, purchase) or even browse around (signifying interest). If an online user exits your website quickly without converting or browsing, it could indicate that they are finding an issue with your content, website layout, or content or suffering a negative user experience. 

CTA Clicks

The design of your website should be inspiring enough to your audience in order to make online users take action. You can use various heat map tools to see what actions your website users are taking on your site and where you are losing valuable opportunities to see conversions. 

Conversions

Conversion rates can help to evaluate your overall website performance whilst comparing the performance of multiple advertising channels. It can show you which channels are most effective for promoting a particular action like sign-up, phone call or, ultimately, a purchase. The data from the conversion rate can be used to spot issues within the marketing funnel and identify why conversions are not happening or what is encouraging them.

All of these metrics can be reported using a Lookers Studio Reports – check out How to setup automated reports in Google Analytics in our blog

How Can a Website Analytics Report Help Improve Website Performance and User Experience?

Learn Website Analytics

A website analytics report can help strengthen the buyer personas associated with your business. Data within the report can help you to identify and understand user demographics, goals and user behaviour, 

Information like this allows businesses to tailor their website and its content more towards their ideal user. Use this data to inform decision-making regarding product offerings and services. 

Understand Website Analytics

Analytical data allows business owners and marketers to see how online users navigate websites. This includes what pages they visit, how long they spend there and what route they take to get to their destination on your site. 

This information can build a map of user behaviour on your website. This helps you to create content that resonates with your audience and offers enough value for them to stay on your website. 

Identify Website Analytics

Your analytics report lets you identify the web pages on your website that are securing the most traffic and holding your audience’s attention. These pages can then provide a blueprint for creating and re-optimising your web pages. 

Using this data, you can reevaluate your strategy and hopefully improve your website and its content, which can increase conversion rate and user engagement. 

Are you looking to unlock the true potential of your website? Take your business to new heights with ROAR Digital Marketing’s Website Analytics and Tracking services.

What Key Metrics Should Be Included in a Website Analytics Report?

Keep a handy checklist when putting together a website analytics report. This ensures you include the key metrics and report on all your data, not just some. 

Here’s a checklist of what to include: 

• The number of unique visitors who visit your website. 
• The percentage of people who leave your website quickly after visiting one page (bounce rate). 
• The average number of pages a user views per session on your website (pages per session).
• The amount of time a user spends on your website during their session (average session duration).
• The amount of traffic that has come to your site from another website (referral traffic).
• The number of people visiting your website from a search engine (organic traffic).
• The number of people who visit your website from a paid ad (paid search). 
• The number of people visiting your website from social media platforms (social traffic).
• The percentage of people who choose to take a desired action on your website; this can include purchasing, signing up for a newsletter or submitting a form, etc., (conversion rate). 
• Words or phrases that people use to find your website on a search engine (keywords).
• The most popular of your web pages (top pages).
• The pages people abandon your website from the most (exit pages).

“If you pick the right metrics for success, you will be able to significantly improve the focus of the whole team and thus improve your business.” – Hiten Shah, Co-Founder and CEO of FYI, Founder of Crazy Egg, KISSmetrics and Quick Sprout.

For more, see our recent blog ‘The Most Important Website Analytics for SMEs‘.

How Often Should Website Analytics Reports be Generated and Reviewed?

The perfect formula for generating or reviewing a website analytics report doesn’t exist. Many marketers will take slightly different approaches. 

At ROAR, our clients can choose how often they receive our website analytics reports, either biweekly or monthly. Our specialists, however, recommend our clients choose the biweekly option.

This is to provide regular updates on their website performance to keep success on track and make sure to make all changes or developments to performance. 

Generating a full report is the most in-depth way of analysing every metric and channel. However, it may not always be completely necessary. Sometimes, a glance over data and trends can reveal any abnormalities and determine if any action is required. 

It is recommended that a total deep dive into your analytics and traffic should occur once a month. This means looking into the data and the changes monthly and identifying the strengths and weaknesses. 

“Data reveals impact, and with data, you can bring more science to your decisions” – Matt Trifiro, CMO at Vapor IO.

Google vs. Oracle, vs. Adobe Analytics

Google

GA4 (previously Google Analytics) is one of the most prominent analytics platforms globally. Research has shown that an estimated 37.9 million websites use Google Analytics.

GA4 is a tool for tracking and reporting user interactions with a website or mobile application. It collects data from apps and websites using a Javascript code. A tracking code sends the event information to GA servers when a user interacts on your website.

GA4 has many advantages and disadvantages.

Pros

• Event-based tracking can simplify data collection, providing insight into user interactions.
• Offers standard reports and custom explorations to see data according to your preference.
• GA4 offers tutorials and test accounts to help you learn how to use the platform.

Cons

• GA4 doesn’t yet provide all the promised features.
• GA4 is evolving and changing as Google introduces and reevaluates features.
• Turotials may often become outdated as new features develop.

Adobe

Adobe Analytics collects data from websites, web and mobile apps. It also collects from Adobe Experience cloud apps and third-party software. Adobe Analytics uses JavaScript tags, APIs, server-side tracking, and SDKs to track user interactions. Adobe Analytics offers marketers the option to track standard or custom events.

This software allows you to create custom reports tailored to your needs and strategy. It also includes a variety of visualisation options.

Adobe has many advantages and disadvantages.

Pros

• Seamless integration with other Adobe and third-party products. This allows businesses to group data from different sources and enhances insights.
• The tool has matured over time, establishing itself as a reliable solution with robust capabilities.
• The platform is highly customisable, allowing businesses to tailor their analytics.

Cons

• There is no free-of-charge version, meaning small businesses are at a disadvantage.
• No testing or tutorial documents are available before purchasing.
• It is very complex to set up, requiring a technology consultant.

Oracle

Oracle analytics is a cloud-based platform from Oracle combining advanced analytics, machine learning and AI. It offers businesses a variety of features, including data visualisation, data preparation modelling, and predictive analytics.

It is user-friendly, allowing technical and non-technical users to use its powerful software easily. It supports a variety of data sources, enabling users to consolidate data from different systems.

Oracle has many advantages and disadvantages.

Pros

• Eliminates the need for multiple tools by offering a comprehensive variety of analytics tools and features.
• It offers a user-friendly interface, making it accessible to all levels of analytics users.
• Oracle is cloud-based, allowing scalability and flexibility.

Cons

• The advanced features of Oracle may require some level of extra training.
• Oracle could be a cost concern for different levels of businesses.
• Oracle users may experience som limitations when integrating with specific systems.

Key Takeaways

• ROAR recommends our clients receive website analytics reports biweekly, with a full deep dive into their analytical performance taking place monthly. 
• Your website analytics report should go beyond the traffic. It should demonstrate clearly the positive or negative effects on ROI. 
• When creating a website analytics report, the main factors to consider are time frames and sources. 

Unlock the full potential of your website with our cutting-edge analytics services. Contact our specialist team today!