One of the most sophisticated, safe, and user-friendly web analytics programs just happens to also be free for anyone to use, regardless of site size or amount of traffic. For many web developers, marketers and site owners, Google Analytics seems like a gift too good to be true. It performs just as well (if not better) than costly, high-end web analytics programs.

Google Analytics is enabled by including a tracking code in the template of your website. This code allows Google to see every page of your site and then give you information about the traffic you’re receiving.

We use Google Analytics to track the performance of our website by observing how visitors interact with our online content. On a regular basis we review our Google Analytics stats to evaluate which pages of our site are getting the most traffic, where those visitors are coming from, and how they are interacting with our site once they arrive.

This is invaluable information for any site owner who desires to make their website a powerful means of communication. The data provided to use from Google Analytics allows us to transform our website from being a one-way piece of communication, into a conversation with our visitors. Without this data, we would just be spewing information onto the web then sitting back hoping that the right people would find us, and that hopefully we’ve lived up to their expectations. But, through the magic of Google Analytics we discover how and why visitors come to our site, if they found what they were looking for, and how often they return. Then we respond in the conversation, by taking this information and tailoring our online content to better meet the needs of our visitors.

Most recently we identified a page on our site that was receiving a high amount of traffic compared to other pages on our site. Assisting associations with conference marketing is a popular service we offer our clients, but it was still pleasantly surprising to see the amount of traffic generated by a recent White Space (our monthly newsletter) edition on the topic. This simple page was where we dumped the newsletter after sending it out to our subscribers.

Our Google Analytics told us that visitors were coming to this page when searching for:

• Conference Marketing Plan
• Increase Conference Attendance
• Marketing A Conference Steps Deciding On The Content
• Conference Attendance Down
• Marketing Plan + Annual Conference

This clued us in on what our visitors are expecting when coming to this page: they want to see tips, information and resources about annual conference marketing. As you can tell, this is not rocket science.

With this information in mind we decided to improve this page of our site in hopes of better meeting our visitors’ expectations.

• First, we added a link to our blog – a place that we update regularly with tips and resources that can be useful to associations planning a conference.
• Second, we added a blurb about who we are and what we do to give the user an idea of who they are taking advice from.
• And lastly, we added a link to our digital portfolio, which is a great opportunity for visitors to get an idea of how our ideas translate to strategy and practical pieces of visual communication.

Now when visitors come to this page, they have easy access to more information on the topic of their interest, they get a better idea of who we are and our capabilities, and they generally have a more enjoyable user experience.

With the help of our Google Analytics data we have quickly and easily transformed a high-trafficked page of our site into a stronger means of communicating with prospects. Associations and nonprofits have very different goals for their websites than we have for ours, but this lesson in optimizing web performance can easily translate to your site.  The data provided to you through Google Analytics can boost your website’s ability to capture the interest of potential members or sponsors and inspire current members for specific actions such as renewal or purchasing a product.