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Internet technology provides stunningly powerful tools to business managers and entrepreneurs. It’s still the responsibility of the person at the head of the business to analyze the available data and trends about the company and its sales, but the more information he is able to obtain in a short period of time, the more resources he has to devote to applying that knowledge correctly.
Google analytics is an unparalleled system for automatically obtaining and organizing crucial information about your online business. Any owner whose company deals in significant volumes of online transactions would be doing himself a terrible disservice to not utilize it.
The system tracks volume of traffic, sources of it, sales figures, details on locations of visitors, and so on. All of what it provides is desirable information, and much of it is essentially information that a successful business owner would be tracking on his own anyway.
General and Specific
Google analytics and other such tools synthesize fundamental data points automatically, so that you don’t have to bother with personally charting multiple months sales figures, or switching between documents to consider concurrent trends.
Google analytics provides overall summaries with detailed reports on specific factors accessible at the click of the mouse. Computers still can’t begin to evaluate the meaning of data for you, but analytics programs can usher you into a situation where that is the only thing that you have to do.
Google analytics links with your AdWords account to identify not only which search terms are directing traffic to your site, but which ones are translating into sales. Without such a comprehensive tool, an online business owner might simply monitor search traffic and make advertising decisions based on that.
An Example
If you have a store that sells parts for muscle cars, a complete analytics tool might show you that while a steady stream of visitors are reaching your site through searches for the term “Mustang parts,” there’s a much larger percentage of people who actually make purchases on your site after searching for the more specific term “CJ Pony Parts classic Mustang parts.”
As a business owner, this insight can help you to anticipate future inventory needs and to strategically plan future advertising, which in this case might exploit the niche interest of your site as a provider of Mustang parts from older lines.
Furthermore, if you wish to direct some of that advertising at terrestrial markets, Google analytics will help you understand in detail where your customers are coming from and which of your markets are most and least valuable.
Here also the value of the information consists in what you can do with it when you don’t have to spend weeks or months tracking, recording, and double-checking statistics in order to get an overall picture of the position of your business.
Mind and Machine Together
A computer cannot match the power of the human mind in business sense or in anything else. An online business owner, no matter what the circumstances or how advanced his technology, must always take it upon himself to recognize the various angles that are available from which to interpret data and the various ways there are of applying that interpretation.
But specifically in light of that challenge, that business owner is well-positioned who has the time and available resources to analyze sales and demographic figures to the utmost and make resulting policy changes deliberately and confidently.
Analytics tools are the very things that make such business owners. It is an indispensable tool for an entrepreneur or manager who wishes to secure a professional advantage in this modern world.
Now that you know a little bit about analytics, like how CJ Pony Mustang parts is a keyword that makes more sense for your car part website, perhaps you’d like to learn about SEO. This post brought to you by Michelle.
