Recently we compared the performance of a client’s website, over the 3+ years that we’ve been working with them, to give insight on marketing performance, not only of the website but other marketing activity both digital and traditional as we look after their strategy and planning, website, PPC, design, print, advertising, PR, emails, events and social media management.
The simple list below with data for the six acquisition areas (found in acquisition overview) in Google Analytics gives us fantastic insight into how we’re doing.
1. Organic search: 390% increase in visits
When people ask Google a question (enter a search term) our client’s webpages continually improve in rankings with a description compelling enough to be clicked on.
This is because we have written the copy for every page of their website with the search terms in mind. We have given our developer all the copy and the metadata for every page so, when people are looking for a service our clients page ranks highly and is clicked on.
There is obviously an initial cost in either time or money to get your on-page SEO right but it’s worth it in the long run.
These webpages could also be blogs that we write regularly for our client about recent issues their clients might search for an answer for, another reason organic search click throughs have improved so dramatically.
2. Paid search: 99.27% increase in visits
Google Ad Words has its own reporting tools so we can see how well the pay-per-click campaigns are doing and our PPC expert reports monthly to the client, but we can see here that click-throughs from paid search have increased by nearly 100 percent so we know the campaigns are working from this data. Since we took over PPC in January 2019 sessions and new users are up by 137% but the overall cost of the campaign is down compared to the previous period.
3. Direct Search: 327% increase in visits
This is people searching the client by name on the internet. They know exactly who they’re looking for. This figure is testament to the PR and other marketing activities were doing for the client that is not necessarily digital. This client appears regularly in two of its target market’s printed magazines, we attend exhibitions and use print advertising. This activity is raising awareness of the client and their services evidenced of the increasing number of people who now know their name and what they do and actively search online to find out more.
4. 63% reduction in visits from referral sites
Referal sites are those with a different domain. This client’s clicks from referral sites was down by 63% and although we don’t like a negative result we know why we have one.
Orginally they had a sperate website for an element of their business that we have since intergrated into their main website, causing a drop in referral clicks, this will only increase as we include other additional websites into their main site.
5. 1810% increase in visits from social media
The figures speak for themselves on the click-throughs from social. We run a very active campaign for this client on facebook, twitter and LinkedIn, including Facebook advertising. Again, each social platform has it’s own reporting tools so we can drill down into what’s really working, but Analytics breaksdown it’s report into each platform for us too.
It is important on social to not only be posting but to be engaging and plan content that will entice visitors to your website, and to a specific page, most easily done using blogs. We write regular blogs for this client that we then promote across the social platforms which contributes significantly to the success of their social activity.
6. 75% decrease in clicks from emails
Again, no one likes a negative number, but this decrease in clicks wasn’t unexpected for several reasons. Post-GDPR the client’s database was reduced initially and we decided on a strategy of regionally specific emails supporting local activity interspersed with a UK wide message. Interestingly when we compared the click-throughs from 25th May 2018 to date to the previous period email click-throughs had actually increased by 74%. It goes to show the GDPR shake up wasn’t all bad and it pays to be targeted.
What are we doing with these visitors?
The figures show a marked increase in the number of visitors coming to the site and the slight reduction in pages per session shows we’re on the right path to giving visitors what they want, bolstered by the fact they are staying on pages for longer.
We can see our client’s website visitors know what or who they are looking for, are more engaged with our content across the internet and are interested in the content on the website so the next step was to install live chat so that the team could engage with visitors and give them an even better experience which has improved conversion rates.
There is no time like the present
Even if you’ve not looked at your Google Analytics before it’s never too late to have a look and see how your activity on and off-line has affected website visits and plan effectively for the future activity on and offline.
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