Navigating website analytics often feels like decoding a foreign language, full of charts, graphs, and numbers that seem important but leave most small business owners scratching their heads.
What does all this data mean for your bottom line?
Philippa, a digital marketing veteran with 25 years of experience transforming raw data into revenue growth, cuts through the confusion with remarkable clarity. She explains that the true challenge isn't collecting data (tools like Google Analytics do that for free), but interpreting it in ways that create meaningful value for your specific business goals. Before diving into any analytics dashboard, she urges entrepreneurs to first clarify exactly what they want visitors to do on their website—beyond just making purchases or completing lead forms. Are they watching your videos? Signing up for newsletters? Following you on social media? These secondary objectives matter tremendously for your business pipeline.
The conversation shifts from theoretical to tactical as Philippa shares real-world examples from her client work, including a manufacturing company that discovered why their conversion rates were plummeting despite steady traffic. By analyzing site search data, they uncovered customers searching for obsolete part numbers and leaving when no results appeared, even though the products still existed under updated numbers. This simple insight led to an easy fix that recovered significant revenue. She challenges common assumptions about analytics benchmarks, arguing that comparing yourself against vague industry standards misses the point entirely. Instead, track your performance over time against metrics that specifically matter to your business model.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alyssa (00:00):
But I think where small business owners really struggle
is interpreting the data inorder for it to mean something
of value to their business.
Welcome to Brilliant Ideas, thepodcast that takes you behind
the scenes of some of the mostinspiring digital products
created by solopreneurs justlike you.
I'm your host, alyssa, adigital product strategist who
helps subject matter expertsgrow their business with online
(00:22):
courses, memberships, coachingprograms and eBooks.
If you're a solopreneur withdreams of packaging your
expertise into a profitabledigital product, then this is
the podcast for you.
Expect honest conversations ofhow they started, the obstacles
they overcame, lessons learnedthe hard way and who faced the
same fears, doubts andchallenges you're experiencing,
from unexpected surprises tobreakthrough moments and
(00:43):
everything in between.
Tune in, get inspired and let'sspark your next big, brilliant
idea.
Website analytics the one thingthat either makes you super
curious or overwhelmed by whatit all means.
Welcome back to the BrilliantIdeas Podcast.
Today, I'm excited to introducePhilippa, a digital marketing
veteran who spent the last 25years turning data into growth.
(01:04):
She spots these hidden gemsthat boost revenue and cut
wasted spending.
She's helped generate hundredsof millions of dollars, so she
knows exactly how to turnnumbers into opportunities.
Get ready to dive into herworld of website analytics.
Let's get started.
Welcome to the show, philippa.
Thanks for being here.
Philippa (01:25):
Hey, alyssa, great to hear from you.
Alyssa (01:27):
So website analytics, I find that there's two types of
business owners that I've comeacross.
There are some businesses whowould rather outsource someone
to handle the analytics thanhave to learn and interpret the
data themselves, but then thereare other business owners who
want to learn how to interprettheir own analytics so that they
can make better informeddecisions around their business.
(01:48):
Now, for the majority ofbusinesses, most people don't
seek out a degree or go throughan entire certification on
Google Analytics, so it doesmake sense at some degree that
there is going to be a bit ofconfusion as to what they should
be tracking.
So if they're visiting theiranalytics for their website with
so many graphs, charts, statsand numbers, where should they
start?
Philippa (02:09):
Yeah, it's a great question and I think I should
say immediately that if youwould prefer to outsource it to
somebody who knows what they'redoing, as the business owner or
decision maker, I don't thinkthat's terrible, as long as you
choose the right person.
Because I have no idea how todo my taxes, I outsource that to
(02:29):
a good accountant, right?
But this piece about where doyou start?
So yes, when you log into ananalytics tool, you usually see
a ton of charts and graphs andstuff.
And what do you do with it?
Because it can be reallyoverwhelming.
The answer is you've got tostart with your business, I mean
(02:51):
, which you do know aboutbecause you're a business owner.
So the whole point is to figureout what is it your business is
really trying to do with yourwebsite.
What are the outcomes thatyou're looking for?
Where do you want people to go?
What do you want them to see?
How do you want them tointeract with you?
And to get really clear aboutthat and most people focus on
the obvious, which is, if you'reselling anything or you've got
a lead generation site, you wantthem to either buy or fill in
(03:13):
the lead form.
Right, that's the ultimatemajor goal, but it's important
to remember that you've probablygot other things going on.
So, for example, you might havevideos or podcasts, like this
one, that you want them tolisten to or watch.
Are they doing that?
You might want them to besigning up for your newsletter.
Are they doing that?
You might want them to beconnecting with you on social
media.
Are they doing that?
(03:33):
So, thinking about not only themajor goal of the site, but all
the other goals, everythingthat people can and should do on
your website.
Now, when you've got that clear, then you can start saying well
, is that happening?
So, where are those points ofinteraction?
And you know.
(03:54):
So the metrics that you shouldlook for can really go beyond
how many visitors did we getthis week?
Because that's not necessarilya helpful metric.
I mean, obviously, if you'vegot no visitors, that's a
helpful metric, because, yeah,that's not good.
But once you're getting sometraffic, you know, just saying
we got more visitors this weekthan we did last week is only
(04:15):
the beginning of the story,because then you want to be
asking well, so what?
Were they the right kind ofvisitors?
Did they do the kinds of thingsthat we want them to do?
Because tons and tons ofvisitors who come to your
website and sort of take onelook or walk away are also not
used to you, right?
So, really thinking veryspecifically about things that
(04:37):
you want to know about, there'sno point measuring for the sake
of it.
So you want to be measuringstuff that you're going to be
doing something about.
So if you have a lead generationform, for example, and nobody's
filling it in, why are they notfilling it in?
That's where you want to go.
So is that because they don'tsee the form?
So if your lead generation formis right at the bottom of a
(04:58):
very long page, one of thethings that analytics will tell
you is how far down the page dothey scroll?
If they never actually scroll,so people aren't engaged by your
content on a very long page,they're going to leave it right.
So anything that's below wherethey typically scroll is not
going to get seen.
So maybe it's that simple.
Your form just isn't being seen.
If it is being seen and peoplestart filling it in and then
(05:20):
they stop another big clue that,and again, you can track that
with a proper analytics package.
You know, did they start fillingin a form but not complete it?
Well, maybe your form's toolong.
People hate filling in longforms, right?
The longer the form, the lesslikely they are to complete it.
So if you can see a lot ofinstances where people start
filling in a form and stop,what's going on there?
(05:42):
Is there a particular questionthat they all stop at?
Maybe you shouldn't be askingthat question right now, right?
Is it just that it's clearlytoo long?
Yeah, what's going on?
Is it a question that I have tothink so hard about that I
can't be bothered, so I don't,right.
So so, thinking about thethings that you're trying to
make happen and then followingthrough with well, are they
(06:04):
happening?
And then trying to tease intowell, if they're not, why not?
Alyssa (06:12):
You know, that's what we're trying to do here.
Okay, I like that approach.
That was a very long answer too.
No, that makes sense.
But I like what you said aboutpoints of interaction and I
think it is very unique to everybusiness, depending on what you
offer, what services you have,if you have a podcast, if you
don't.
Getting clear about theoutcomes first.
(06:32):
So that does make sense.
And then looking at all theother little goals that I
haven't really thought of thatalso matter in getting closer to
your end goal, which isobviously lead generating or
whatever it is for your business.
And then looking at the traffic, but even more than that,
looking at the specifics of,like your sales page and how
many people like what is thetime spent on that website or on
(06:54):
that sales page and does it goto the next checkout or do they
take the next step?
And if they don't, why Startasking those questions?
Now, do you track this on likea spreadsheet or do you have
like, do you fill it out firstof what you want to track, and
then you go kind of like daily,weekly, monthly.
(07:17):
So like what metrics do youthink?
Philippa (07:18):
are most important, that we should be tracking on
the daily, weekly or monthly.
So when I work with a client, Imean, yes, I well, the first
thing I do is sit down with thebusiness owner and talk about
their business, just like we'vejust talked about, I mean,
without ever looking at theanalytics.
Right, what's going on?
What do you want to happen?
Who are your audience?
That kind of stuff right, whatare you doing to track to get
traffic, et cetera, et cetera?
Right, then we can put togethera plan based on that.
(07:40):
And, yes, that, and yes, I dosort of make a spreadsheet of
what am I tracking and why, justbecause I think it's good
documentation.
But what should you track?
As I said, I really think thisdepends on what the answers to
those questions that we justasked are.
And one thing that people dothat really doesn't make sense
(08:00):
is to track absolutelyeverything they possibly can.
So people will make laundrylists of metrics and go after
all of them, and the point is sowhat you know?
If you can't say so, what?
Then there's no point doing it,because you've got to be doing
it for a reason Like what am Igoing to do with this
information?
Now I have it.
If it's just a nice to know,okay, fine, but so what?
(08:21):
Right?
So, and if you find somethingso you know we just talked about
a couple of examples is is theform that they want to fill in?
We want them to fill in on thecall to action that we want to
click on way down the page andnobody's getting that far.
So you can track, like I thinkI said, how far down the page
people go.
Um, so you know, we come upwith a theory that people aren't
(08:44):
clicking on it.
Right, so it must be.
Maybe it's too far down thepage people go.
So you know, we come up with atheory that people aren't
clicking on it.
Right, so it must be.
Maybe it's too far down thepage and people aren't getting
there.
And we can see that peoplearen't getting there because we
can see how far they'rescrolling.
Okay, now we have a theory.
So what we want to do now istest whether that theory is
right by moving the call toaction, or rather maybe even
duplicating it.
(09:04):
There's absolutely no reason,no problem with having more than
one on the same page, right?
So maybe we add that thing.
We want them to click on a bitfurther up the page.
Maybe we keep it at the bottomof the page, but we add another
one within the area that we knowpeople are scrolling.
Now do we get more clicks?
Right, that's how you knowwe've got.
(09:25):
We know that there's a problem,we've identified a potential
solution or a way to approach it.
Then we have to test it.
We have to try and see if it'sworking.
Now, if we're measuring 50,000different things at once and
we're trying to solve for all ofthem at the same time,
obviously it's a mess.
I said 50,000, I should havedone that.
It's obviously a ridiculousexaggeration.
But even 20 or 30 things atonce right, because you want to
(09:48):
know.
We moved this and it seems tohave made a difference.
If you've moved 10 other thingsat the same time, it's much
harder to know which one ofthose is working and which
aren't.
Okay, so, very focused tracking.
That's going to allow you tomake specific changes and test
them.
And once you know that you'vegot that right, move on to the
(10:10):
next thing.
Okay, it's a slower burn, butit's a much more effective
approach.
Alyssa (10:17):
I like that.
I like what you said about aslower burn, because it is, it
is true.
I mean, I think this whole ideaof trial and error like we're
trying to somehow avoid thistrial and error because it takes
too much time, it's too timeconsuming, everybody's looking
for those quick wins and I feellike the analytics part, you
can't rush because it's all anumbers game and it's also you
(10:45):
have to figure out what works,because for someone else's
checkout page, whoever lands ontheir page might be different
than yours, and so I think thisis where it comes.
There's unique.
We need to have a plan that'svery unique to our business.
And it's one thing to have allthese numbers recorded and
(11:06):
logged and it's great to haveall this data, but I think where
small business owners reallystruggle is interpreting the
data in order for it to meansomething of value to their
business.
Like, for an example, recordinghow long people spend visiting
your website and then comparingthat to the standard of what it
should be and then knowing howto fix it.
So, similar to what you justsaid about you know having that
(11:28):
theory, then testing it and thenreviewing it, analyzing and see
if it moves the needle.
So then before, at the partwhere they're trying to
interpret, to see, like, whatdoes the data mean against the
standard.
I think there's a gap there asto like how do you?
How do you like?
Theories are just theories,like we don't even know if
(11:50):
that's correct or if we'reinterpreting the data correctly.
So can you give just some Iguess just some advice as to
like, for someone who is new tothis, how do you come up with a
conclusion that this might bethe problem, or is it all just
really based on guessing?
Philippa (12:12):
Well, I mean, obviously it's a mixture.
Look, if you've got a brokenlink, you've got a broken link
right, easy to fix.
Beyond that, you know,sometimes things can be obvious.
I mean, I'm actually hopefullybringing a book out in the next
couple of months that's aimed atbusiness owners and decision
(12:32):
makers in exactly this kind ofmanner.
So not talking about thetechnology, but talking about
how you think about yourbusiness in this context and,
for example, the story in thereis about using your site search
engine, where you have a lot ofcontent.
It's got a lot of stories in itand examples from my own client
experience.
So, for example, I know thisisn't your audience, but just as
(12:55):
an example, I had amanufacturing client who sold a
lot of parts different componentparts for equipment and over
time the part numbers wouldchange and so their sales were
declining and they couldn'tunderstand why, because they
were getting visitors but theirconversion rates were going down
quite a lot.
(13:16):
And we analyzed the site searchtraffic so you can tell what
people put into the searchengine.
So this is a search enginethat's on your site, not Google,
and we noticed that a lot ofpeople you know they thought
they knew the part number thatthey wanted.
So they were putting it in, butit was an obsolete part number
(13:37):
and so the search engine wascoming back and saying sorry, we
haven't got that.
And of course that basicallysays go away, we can't help you.
There was nothing else, itwasn't doing anything else,
right, it was just saying sorry,we haven't got that.
So they were leaving.
End of sales opportunity.
And of course the part numberhas changed, but the part still
exists.
So you know, then I mean thefixes.
(14:00):
Then becomes obvious right, ie,you need to build a table that
translates the old part numbersonto the new part numbers and
then says to the visitor hey,you know, the part number has
changed.
Here it is would you like tobuy it?
Okay, so it's not rocketscience.
Once you've identified theproblem, but without having done
that study of the search engineand got that insight, we
(14:22):
wouldn't have realized whypeople were leaving.
Alyssa (14:25):
Okay, so just start with looking at what you think might
be wrong.
Philippa (14:30):
You know you're looking for clues.
I mean, you know you've got aproblem and in this case your
problem is that, although yourtraffic isn't going down, your
conversion rates are, so somethings are right.
So what's going on?
And then you've got to yeah,there is a certain amount of
theorizing in there, obviouslybecause you've got to look at,
well, what could it be.
But the site said if you have alot of content on your site, you
(14:51):
really should have a searchengine, because what you can get
out of that is absolute gold interms of what people look for,
how they describe what they lookfor which can give you a lot of
insights into the words thatyour customers use, as opposed
to the words that you use,because often in industries with
a lot of geek speak, thequestion that's really important
(15:11):
is does your market speak thesame geek speak that you do?
Do they understand yourtechnical terminology Right?
Because if they don't, they'reoften not able to find stuff
that they should be able to findbecause they don't know the
right word that you're using forit.
That's a great insight.
It's also the search engine isfantastic.
It's also a wonderful source ofideas for new products and
(15:34):
services, and your audiencemakes digital products like
eBooks.
I've got a story in my bookabout creating eBooks based on
clear demand for content basedon searches in the search engine
.
Creating eBooks based on cleardemand for content based on
searches in the search engineRight?
So people are looking forcontent which is within your
area of expertise, that they'regetting a good idea of, because
(15:55):
they're seeing what the contentis that you've got.
But they asked something thatyou haven't yet got anything
about and boom, there's a marketresearch idea that you could
turn into another product, and Imean, I again have stories of
literally doing that.
So the thing I love aboutanalytics is that it can help
you to not only find out what'sgoing wrong, but also to give
(16:18):
you ideas for moving forward andgrowing, as I said, with
opportunities for new productservices and new markets, as I
said, with opportunities for newproduct services and new
markets Makes sense, and this isa little bit left center, but
do you use ChatGPT to help youdo any comparisons with data
analytics?
Alyssa (16:37):
Or I've seen some people , some creators, do this, where
they put in their data inChatGPT and then it'll give out
suggestions.
Philippa (16:52):
Do you use ChatGPT with your own clients or in your
business at all?
Actually, I don't particularlylike ChatGPT, but as a specific
tool I actually prefer I mean,my favorite, actually, ai tool
is Claude.
But I think that AI can bereally great in doing some
number crunching, especially ifyou've got big data sets right
so it can look for trends andpatterns.
And you know tools like GoogleAnalytics have already got AI
(17:13):
built in to do that.
And it's wonderful because itcan, you know you can say can
you take this and show it as agraph, and so it can do
visualization and save me tonsof money doing that kind of
stuff.
But I do have my doubts aboutchat, gdp or AI when you get to
(17:34):
that piece that I'm saying isthe so what?
Because then you've got to takeinto account the specifics of
the business, that specificbusiness right, the things that
they're trying to do, theirmarkets and so on, any
constraints that there might beat this time.
You know AI is learning fromwhat it finds.
(17:58):
So I think that I'm not surethat I'm yet ready to say AI can
replace me.
Alyssa (18:08):
No, that makes sense.
I mean there are certain things, obviously.
I mean it depends on theprompts and what you give it and
all those things.
But I also think that, assomeone who is a web server data
analyst who specializes in it,no, you cannot be replaced,
because you're the one that'sreally going to, you know,
(18:29):
because you have really uniqueexpertise, and I feel like AI
can only go so far.
Philippa (18:37):
Yeah, like I said, it's really good all the basic
stuff and I can stop having toworry about doing that and sort
of saying what's the trend hereand again.
You know you have to be carefulabout the way you ask your
questions so you don't introducebias into the answer.
So, yeah, and actually can Ijust push back on one other
thing that you said yeah, whichis the average in your?
(18:59):
A lot of people like benchmarks, right, what's the average in
my industry?
So I actually got asked theother day by a business owner
you know what's the averageengagement time for a piece of
content like this?
And I hate that question.
I mean, I hate the question butI think it's not a helpful
question for a specific business, for an individual business,
because you don't know whatyou're actually comparing with
(19:21):
Sometimes.
I mean, engagement time on apage is very difficult to
measure.
In analytics you can also getalong with the analytics usage
recordings.
So you know, for example,there's a HubSpot or Microsoft
Clarity.
You know they will actually doscreen recordings of how people
move around a page, which can bereally helpful.
(19:43):
Because one thing you don'tknow about the engagement time
is you know, did I get a phonecall while I was on this page
and I stopped for five minutesto talk to somebody on the phone
and then I came back to thepage and it's recorded that five
minutes.
So you think, oh, wow, thisperson is really interested in
this page.
But I'm actually not, becauseyou don't know was I proactively
consuming that content or not.
(20:05):
And sometimes, you know, longtime spent on a website can be
because somebody can't find whatthey're looking for and they're
kind of searching for it.
Sometimes a very short timespent on a website can be
because somebody found exactlywhat they were looking for,
really quickly, fulfilled a callto action, gave you know, did
what the business owner wantedand left, which is a highly
(20:34):
successful visit that didn'ttake long at all.
So you know I, and the same formarketing.
You know people say, well,what's what's, what's the
average amount of traffic orsomething like that.
Right, and again, you don'tknow, when you see those
benchmarks, how well other sitesare marketing themselves.
You know what their budget is,maybe for advertising et cetera.
So I mean, industry benchmarksmay be interesting up to a point
(20:54):
, maybe it gives you some sortof idea, but I do think that
it's much more useful tobenchmark yourself.
Ie when you start really takinga serious interest in a given
metric, like engagement ortraffic from specific sources
and so on, to take a benchmark,at that point, take a measure,
you know, say this is what we'regetting now, and then let's see
(21:16):
what we're doing a month fromnow and three months from now
and so on, and see if we'redoing better.
Alyssa (21:22):
I do agree with that.
Lots of clients have also askedme like what's this industry
standard?
And it is hard to comparebecause there are like millions
in your industry and it's reallyhard because it's not very
unique, very generic standardconversion rates or things like
that.
And yeah, I agree with that,Like compare against your own
data.
But the first step is to starttracking some of that data.
Philippa (21:46):
So what would you say?
And again, you know we go backto the so what?
So what are you going to dowith that information?
Anyway, the industry standardyou're doing better than the
industry standard.
What does that mean?
Right, Should you just relaxand stop worrying about
everything.
You're doing worse than theindustry standard.
What does that mean?
Maybe you're brand new and youneed to get some search engine
(22:06):
traction.
I mean, it doesn't necessarilymean that you're actually either
very businesses or newerbusinesses, or we don't know
what level they are, how manyyears they've been in business
for.
Alyssa (22:27):
So that doesn't really give us a snapshot either.
So what would you say?
We've kind of come to our next,to take the first step in their
(22:51):
business.
Philippa (22:52):
So what would you say is one tip, strategy, mantra or
advice that you can share withmy listeners of what their next
step should be, of what theirnext step should be Well,
honestly, I would say, if youhave a website, either if you
don't have analytics at all orif you're not seriously looking
at your analytics, it's time tostart Because, honestly, if you
have a website that plays anykind of role in your business,
(23:15):
if you're not doing this, you'reshooting in the dark.
With everything you're doing,you don't know for sure how many
people are coming to your doing.
You don't know for sure howmany people are coming to your
site.
You don't know what they'redoing.
Even if you're getting a fewleads, you could be getting
potentially a whole lot more.
So it doesn't make sense to meto put time and money into
creating a website and then notfiguring out whether or not it's
(23:35):
doing what you wanted it to do.
So make a start.
Google Analytics, for example,is free, um.
Put it on your site and it's.
Again, it's not that difficultand again, you can.
You can even if you don't wantto hire somebody like me on a
long-term basis.
You can get somebody to helpyou with that.
If you don't know how to do it,it's not really that difficult,
um, and then just start lookingat some basic things that will
(24:00):
help you, again, allied withwhat you're trying to do with
your site.
That will get you on the roadto starting to have some ideas
about what's working and what'snot working, and where you may
be spending a load of money onsocial media ads or something
like that that, honestly, isn'tpaying off for you.
(24:29):
Makes sense, amazing.
And where can people connectwith you after?
Yeah, like, where can peopleconnect with you online and on
their website?
There is this free ebook whichhas it's called Five Hidden Gems
and it has five stories from myexperience where we've made a
significant difference to thebusiness or to the website,
(24:52):
based on insights from analyticsthat we couldn't have otherwise
known.
This whole ebook is in English.
There's no charts or graphs inthe whole thing, but it's
designed to give you maybe someinspiration to say maybe that's
happening for us and we shouldcheck it out.
So that's a free e-book.
Please feel free to go and getit.
Alyssa (25:11):
That's great.
Well, thank you so much,philippa, for joining me today.
Thank you, it's been a pleasure, great and for everyone tuning
in.
Thank you for so much forlistening today and hanging out
with us.
I really hope you found thisepisode as helpful as I did.
I took a ton of notes and allof them are going to be in the
show notes, so make sure tocheck that out and make sure to
connect with Philippa as well.
(25:32):
Thanks so much, everyone, andI'll catch you next time on
another brilliant idea.
Thanks for tuning into thisepisode of Brilliant Ideas.
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Ready to bring your next big,brilliant idea to life?
Visit alissavelsercom forresources, guidance and
everything you need to startcreating something amazing.
But I think where small business owners really struggle
is interpreting the data inorder for it to mean something
of value to their business.
Welcome to Brilliant Ideas, thepodcast that takes you behind
the scenes of some of the mostinspiring digital products
created by solopreneurs justlike you.
I'm your host, alyssa, adigital product strategist who
helps subject matter expertsgrow their business with online
(00:22):
courses, memberships, coachingprograms and eBooks.
If you're a solopreneur withdreams of packaging your
expertise into a profitabledigital product, then this is
the podcast for you.
Expect honest conversations ofhow they started, the obstacles
they overcame, lessons learnedthe hard way and who faced the
same fears, doubts andchallenges you're experiencing,
from unexpected surprises tobreakthrough moments and
(00:43):
everything in between.
Tune in, get inspired and let'sspark your next big, brilliant
idea.
Website analytics the one thingthat either makes you super
curious or overwhelmed by whatit all means.
Welcome back to the BrilliantIdeas Podcast.
Today, I'm excited to introducePhilippa, a digital marketing
veteran who spent the last 25years turning data into growth.
(01:04):
She spots these hidden gemsthat boost revenue and cut
wasted spending.
She's helped generate hundredsof millions of dollars, so she
knows exactly how to turnnumbers into opportunities.
Get ready to dive into herworld of website analytics.
Let's get started.
Welcome to the show, philippa.
Thanks for being here.
Philippa (01:25):
Hey, alyssa, great to hear from you.
Alyssa (01:27):
So website analytics, I find that there's two types of
business owners that I've comeacross.
There are some businesses whowould rather outsource someone
to handle the analytics thanhave to learn and interpret the
data themselves, but then thereare other business owners who
want to learn how to interprettheir own analytics so that they
can make better informeddecisions around their business.
(01:48):
Now, for the majority ofbusinesses, most people don't
seek out a degree or go throughan entire certification on
Google Analytics, so it doesmake sense at some degree that
there is going to be a bit ofconfusion as to what they should
be tracking.
So if they're visiting theiranalytics for their website with
so many graphs, charts, statsand numbers, where should they
start?
Philippa (02:09):
Yeah, it's a great question and I think I should
say immediately that if youwould prefer to outsource it to
somebody who knows what they'redoing, as the business owner or
decision maker, I don't thinkthat's terrible, as long as you
choose the right person.
Because I have no idea how todo my taxes, I outsource that to
(02:29):
a good accountant, right?
But this piece about where doyou start?
So yes, when you log into ananalytics tool, you usually see
a ton of charts and graphs andstuff.
And what do you do with it?
Because it can be reallyoverwhelming.
The answer is you've got tostart with your business, I mean
(02:51):
, which you do know aboutbecause you're a business owner.
So the whole point is to figureout what is it your business is
really trying to do with yourwebsite.
What are the outcomes thatyou're looking for?
Where do you want people to go?
What do you want them to see?
How do you want them tointeract with you?
And to get really clear aboutthat and most people focus on
the obvious, which is, if you'reselling anything or you've got
a lead generation site, you wantthem to either buy or fill in
(03:13):
the lead form.
Right, that's the ultimatemajor goal, but it's important
to remember that you've probablygot other things going on.
So, for example, you might havevideos or podcasts, like this
one, that you want them tolisten to or watch.
Are they doing that?
You might want them to besigning up for your newsletter.
Are they doing that?
You might want them to beconnecting with you on social
media.
Are they doing that?
(03:33):
So, thinking about not only themajor goal of the site, but all
the other goals, everythingthat people can and should do on
your website.
Now, when you've got that clear, then you can start saying well
, is that happening?
So, where are those points ofinteraction?
And you know.
(03:54):
So the metrics that you shouldlook for can really go beyond
how many visitors did we getthis week?
Because that's not necessarilya helpful metric.
I mean, obviously, if you'vegot no visitors, that's a
helpful metric, because, yeah,that's not good.
But once you're getting sometraffic, you know, just saying
we got more visitors this weekthan we did last week is only
(04:15):
the beginning of the story,because then you want to be
asking well, so what?
Were they the right kind ofvisitors?
Did they do the kinds of thingsthat we want them to do?
Because tons and tons ofvisitors who come to your
website and sort of take onelook or walk away are also not
used to you, right?
So, really thinking veryspecifically about things that
(04:37):
you want to know about, there'sno point measuring for the sake
of it.
So you want to be measuringstuff that you're going to be
doing something about.
So if you have a lead generationform, for example, and nobody's
filling it in, why are they notfilling it in?
That's where you want to go.
So is that because they don'tsee the form?
So if your lead generation formis right at the bottom of a
(04:58):
very long page, one of thethings that analytics will tell
you is how far down the page dothey scroll?
If they never actually scroll,so people aren't engaged by your
content on a very long page,they're going to leave it right.
So anything that's below wherethey typically scroll is not
going to get seen.
So maybe it's that simple.
Your form just isn't being seen.
If it is being seen and peoplestart filling it in and then
(05:20):
they stop another big clue that,and again, you can track that
with a proper analytics package.
You know, did they start fillingin a form but not complete it?
Well, maybe your form's toolong.
People hate filling in longforms, right?
The longer the form, the lesslikely they are to complete it.
So if you can see a lot ofinstances where people start
filling in a form and stop,what's going on there?
(05:42):
Is there a particular questionthat they all stop at?
Maybe you shouldn't be askingthat question right now, right?
Is it just that it's clearlytoo long?
Yeah, what's going on?
Is it a question that I have tothink so hard about that I
can't be bothered, so I don't,right.
So so, thinking about thethings that you're trying to
make happen and then followingthrough with well, are they
(06:04):
happening?
And then trying to tease intowell, if they're not, why not?
Alyssa (06:12):
You know, that's what we're trying to do here.
Okay, I like that approach.
That was a very long answer too.
No, that makes sense.
But I like what you said aboutpoints of interaction and I
think it is very unique to everybusiness, depending on what you
offer, what services you have,if you have a podcast, if you
don't.
Getting clear about theoutcomes first.
(06:32):
So that does make sense.
And then looking at all theother little goals that I
haven't really thought of thatalso matter in getting closer to
your end goal, which isobviously lead generating or
whatever it is for your business.
And then looking at the traffic, but even more than that,
looking at the specifics of,like your sales page and how
many people like what is thetime spent on that website or on
(06:54):
that sales page and does it goto the next checkout or do they
take the next step?
And if they don't, why Startasking those questions?
Now, do you track this on likea spreadsheet or do you have
like, do you fill it out firstof what you want to track, and
then you go kind of like daily,weekly, monthly.
(07:17):
So like what metrics do youthink?
Philippa (07:18):
are most important, that we should be tracking on
the daily, weekly or monthly.
So when I work with a client, Imean, yes, I well, the first
thing I do is sit down with thebusiness owner and talk about
their business, just like we'vejust talked about, I mean,
without ever looking at theanalytics.
Right, what's going on?
What do you want to happen?
Who are your audience?
That kind of stuff right, whatare you doing to track to get
traffic, et cetera, et cetera?
Right, then we can put togethera plan based on that.
(07:40):
And, yes, that, and yes, I dosort of make a spreadsheet of
what am I tracking and why, justbecause I think it's good
documentation.
But what should you track?
As I said, I really think thisdepends on what the answers to
those questions that we justasked are.
And one thing that people dothat really doesn't make sense
(08:00):
is to track absolutelyeverything they possibly can.
So people will make laundrylists of metrics and go after
all of them, and the point is sowhat you know?
If you can't say so, what?
Then there's no point doing it,because you've got to be doing
it for a reason Like what am Igoing to do with this
information?
Now I have it.
If it's just a nice to know,okay, fine, but so what?
(08:21):
Right?
So, and if you find somethingso you know we just talked about
a couple of examples is is theform that they want to fill in?
We want them to fill in on thecall to action that we want to
click on way down the page andnobody's getting that far.
So you can track, like I thinkI said, how far down the page
people go.
Um, so you know, we come upwith a theory that people aren't
(08:44):
clicking on it.
Right, so it must be.
Maybe it's too far down thepage people go.
So you know, we come up with atheory that people aren't
clicking on it.
Right, so it must be.
Maybe it's too far down thepage and people aren't getting
there.
And we can see that peoplearen't getting there because we
can see how far they'rescrolling.
Okay, now we have a theory.
So what we want to do now istest whether that theory is
right by moving the call toaction, or rather maybe even
duplicating it.
(09:04):
There's absolutely no reason,no problem with having more than
one on the same page, right?
So maybe we add that thing.
We want them to click on a bitfurther up the page.
Maybe we keep it at the bottomof the page, but we add another
one within the area that we knowpeople are scrolling.
Now do we get more clicks?
Right, that's how you knowwe've got.
(09:25):
We know that there's a problem,we've identified a potential
solution or a way to approach it.
Then we have to test it.
We have to try and see if it'sworking.
Now, if we're measuring 50,000different things at once and
we're trying to solve for all ofthem at the same time,
obviously it's a mess.
I said 50,000, I should havedone that.
It's obviously a ridiculousexaggeration.
But even 20 or 30 things atonce right, because you want to
(09:48):
know.
We moved this and it seems tohave made a difference.
If you've moved 10 other thingsat the same time, it's much
harder to know which one ofthose is working and which
aren't.
Okay, so, very focused tracking.
That's going to allow you tomake specific changes and test
them.
And once you know that you'vegot that right, move on to the
(10:10):
next thing.
Okay, it's a slower burn, butit's a much more effective
approach.
Alyssa (10:17):
I like that.
I like what you said about aslower burn, because it is, it
is true.
I mean, I think this whole ideaof trial and error like we're
trying to somehow avoid thistrial and error because it takes
too much time, it's too timeconsuming, everybody's looking
for those quick wins and I feellike the analytics part, you
can't rush because it's all anumbers game and it's also you
(10:45):
have to figure out what works,because for someone else's
checkout page, whoever lands ontheir page might be different
than yours, and so I think thisis where it comes.
There's unique.
We need to have a plan that'svery unique to our business.
And it's one thing to have allthese numbers recorded and
(11:06):
logged and it's great to haveall this data, but I think where
small business owners reallystruggle is interpreting the
data in order for it to meansomething of value to their
business.
Like, for an example, recordinghow long people spend visiting
your website and then comparingthat to the standard of what it
should be and then knowing howto fix it.
So, similar to what you justsaid about you know having that
(11:28):
theory, then testing it and thenreviewing it, analyzing and see
if it moves the needle.
So then before, at the partwhere they're trying to
interpret, to see, like, whatdoes the data mean against the
standard.
I think there's a gap there asto like how do you?
How do you like?
Theories are just theories,like we don't even know if
(11:50):
that's correct or if we'reinterpreting the data correctly.
So can you give just some Iguess just some advice as to
like, for someone who is new tothis, how do you come up with a
conclusion that this might bethe problem, or is it all just
really based on guessing?
Philippa (12:12):
Well, I mean, obviously it's a mixture.
Look, if you've got a brokenlink, you've got a broken link
right, easy to fix.
Beyond that, you know,sometimes things can be obvious.
I mean, I'm actually hopefullybringing a book out in the next
couple of months that's aimed atbusiness owners and decision
(12:32):
makers in exactly this kind ofmanner.
So not talking about thetechnology, but talking about
how you think about yourbusiness in this context and,
for example, the story in thereis about using your site search
engine, where you have a lot ofcontent.
It's got a lot of stories in itand examples from my own client
experience.
So, for example, I know thisisn't your audience, but just as
(12:55):
an example, I had amanufacturing client who sold a
lot of parts different componentparts for equipment and over
time the part numbers wouldchange and so their sales were
declining and they couldn'tunderstand why, because they
were getting visitors but theirconversion rates were going down
quite a lot.
(13:16):
And we analyzed the site searchtraffic so you can tell what
people put into the searchengine.
So this is a search enginethat's on your site, not Google,
and we noticed that a lot ofpeople you know they thought
they knew the part number thatthey wanted.
So they were putting it in, butit was an obsolete part number
(13:37):
and so the search engine wascoming back and saying sorry, we
haven't got that.
And of course that basicallysays go away, we can't help you.
There was nothing else, itwasn't doing anything else,
right, it was just saying sorry,we haven't got that.
So they were leaving.
End of sales opportunity.
And of course the part numberhas changed, but the part still
exists.
So you know, then I mean thefixes.
(14:00):
Then becomes obvious right, ie,you need to build a table that
translates the old part numbersonto the new part numbers and
then says to the visitor hey,you know, the part number has
changed.
Here it is would you like tobuy it?
Okay, so it's not rocketscience.
Once you've identified theproblem, but without having done
that study of the search engineand got that insight, we
(14:22):
wouldn't have realized whypeople were leaving.
Alyssa (14:25):
Okay, so just start with looking at what you think might
be wrong.
Philippa (14:30):
You know you're looking for clues.
I mean, you know you've got aproblem and in this case your
problem is that, although yourtraffic isn't going down, your
conversion rates are, so somethings are right.
So what's going on?
And then you've got to yeah,there is a certain amount of
theorizing in there, obviouslybecause you've got to look at,
well, what could it be.
But the site said if you have alot of content on your site, you
(14:51):
really should have a searchengine, because what you can get
out of that is absolute gold interms of what people look for,
how they describe what they lookfor which can give you a lot of
insights into the words thatyour customers use, as opposed
to the words that you use,because often in industries with
a lot of geek speak, thequestion that's really important
(15:11):
is does your market speak thesame geek speak that you do?
Do they understand yourtechnical terminology Right?
Because if they don't, they'reoften not able to find stuff
that they should be able to findbecause they don't know the
right word that you're using forit.
That's a great insight.
It's also the search engine isfantastic.
It's also a wonderful source ofideas for new products and
(15:34):
services, and your audiencemakes digital products like
eBooks.
I've got a story in my bookabout creating eBooks based on
clear demand for content basedon searches in the search engine
.
Creating eBooks based on cleardemand for content based on
searches in the search engineRight?
So people are looking forcontent which is within your
area of expertise, that they'regetting a good idea of, because
(15:55):
they're seeing what the contentis that you've got.
But they asked something thatyou haven't yet got anything
about and boom, there's a marketresearch idea that you could
turn into another product, and Imean, I again have stories of
literally doing that.
So the thing I love aboutanalytics is that it can help
you to not only find out what'sgoing wrong, but also to give
(16:18):
you ideas for moving forward andgrowing, as I said, with
opportunities for new productservices and new markets, as I
said, with opportunities for newproduct services and new
markets Makes sense, and this isa little bit left center, but
do you use ChatGPT to help youdo any comparisons with data
analytics?
Alyssa (16:37):
Or I've seen some people , some creators, do this, where
they put in their data inChatGPT and then it'll give out
suggestions.
Philippa (16:52):
Do you use ChatGPT with your own clients or in your
business at all?
Actually, I don't particularlylike ChatGPT, but as a specific
tool I actually prefer I mean,my favorite, actually, ai tool
is Claude.
But I think that AI can bereally great in doing some
number crunching, especially ifyou've got big data sets right
so it can look for trends andpatterns.
And you know tools like GoogleAnalytics have already got AI
(17:13):
built in to do that.
And it's wonderful because itcan, you know you can say can
you take this and show it as agraph, and so it can do
visualization and save me tonsof money doing that kind of
stuff.
But I do have my doubts aboutchat, gdp or AI when you get to
(17:34):
that piece that I'm saying isthe so what?
Because then you've got to takeinto account the specifics of
the business, that specificbusiness right, the things that
they're trying to do, theirmarkets and so on, any
constraints that there might beat this time.
You know AI is learning fromwhat it finds.
(17:58):
So I think that I'm not surethat I'm yet ready to say AI can
replace me.
Alyssa (18:08):
No, that makes sense.
I mean there are certain things, obviously.
I mean it depends on theprompts and what you give it and
all those things.
But I also think that, assomeone who is a web server data
analyst who specializes in it,no, you cannot be replaced,
because you're the one that'sreally going to, you know,
(18:29):
because you have really uniqueexpertise, and I feel like AI
can only go so far.
Philippa (18:37):
Yeah, like I said, it's really good all the basic
stuff and I can stop having toworry about doing that and sort
of saying what's the trend hereand again.
You know you have to be carefulabout the way you ask your
questions so you don't introducebias into the answer.
So, yeah, and actually can Ijust push back on one other
thing that you said yeah, whichis the average in your?
(18:59):
A lot of people like benchmarks, right, what's the average in
my industry?
So I actually got asked theother day by a business owner
you know what's the averageengagement time for a piece of
content like this?
And I hate that question.
I mean, I hate the question butI think it's not a helpful
question for a specific business, for an individual business,
because you don't know whatyou're actually comparing with
(19:21):
Sometimes.
I mean, engagement time on apage is very difficult to
measure.
In analytics you can also getalong with the analytics usage
recordings.
So you know, for example,there's a HubSpot or Microsoft
Clarity.
You know they will actually doscreen recordings of how people
move around a page, which can bereally helpful.
(19:43):
Because one thing you don'tknow about the engagement time
is you know, did I get a phonecall while I was on this page
and I stopped for five minutesto talk to somebody on the phone
and then I came back to thepage and it's recorded that five
minutes.
So you think, oh, wow, thisperson is really interested in
this page.
But I'm actually not, becauseyou don't know was I proactively
consuming that content or not.
(20:05):
And sometimes, you know, longtime spent on a website can be
because somebody can't find whatthey're looking for and they're
kind of searching for it.
Sometimes a very short timespent on a website can be
because somebody found exactlywhat they were looking for,
really quickly, fulfilled a callto action, gave you know, did
what the business owner wantedand left, which is a highly
(20:34):
successful visit that didn'ttake long at all.
So you know I, and the same formarketing.
You know people say, well,what's what's, what's the
average amount of traffic orsomething like that.
Right, and again, you don'tknow, when you see those
benchmarks, how well other sitesare marketing themselves.
You know what their budget is,maybe for advertising et cetera.
So I mean, industry benchmarksmay be interesting up to a point
(20:54):
, maybe it gives you some sortof idea, but I do think that
it's much more useful tobenchmark yourself.
Ie when you start really takinga serious interest in a given
metric, like engagement ortraffic from specific sources
and so on, to take a benchmark,at that point, take a measure,
you know, say this is what we'regetting now, and then let's see
(21:16):
what we're doing a month fromnow and three months from now
and so on, and see if we'redoing better.
Alyssa (21:22):
I do agree with that.
Lots of clients have also askedme like what's this industry
standard?
And it is hard to comparebecause there are like millions
in your industry and it's reallyhard because it's not very
unique, very generic standardconversion rates or things like
that.
And yeah, I agree with that,Like compare against your own
data.
But the first step is to starttracking some of that data.
Philippa (21:46):
So what would you say?
And again, you know we go backto the so what?
So what are you going to dowith that information?
Anyway, the industry standardyou're doing better than the
industry standard.
What does that mean?
Right, Should you just relaxand stop worrying about
everything.
You're doing worse than theindustry standard.
What does that mean?
Maybe you're brand new and youneed to get some search engine
(22:06):
traction.
I mean, it doesn't necessarilymean that you're actually either
very businesses or newerbusinesses, or we don't know
what level they are, how manyyears they've been in business
for.
Alyssa (22:27):
So that doesn't really give us a snapshot either.
So what would you say?
We've kind of come to our next,to take the first step in their
(22:51):
business.
Philippa (22:52):
So what would you say is one tip, strategy, mantra or
advice that you can share withmy listeners of what their next
step should be, of what theirnext step should be Well,
honestly, I would say, if youhave a website, either if you
don't have analytics at all orif you're not seriously looking
at your analytics, it's time tostart Because, honestly, if you
have a website that plays anykind of role in your business,
(23:15):
if you're not doing this, you'reshooting in the dark.
With everything you're doing,you don't know for sure how many
people are coming to your doing.
You don't know for sure howmany people are coming to your
site.
You don't know what they'redoing.
Even if you're getting a fewleads, you could be getting
potentially a whole lot more.
So it doesn't make sense to meto put time and money into
creating a website and then notfiguring out whether or not it's
(23:35):
doing what you wanted it to do.
So make a start.
Google Analytics, for example,is free, um.
Put it on your site and it's.
Again, it's not that difficultand again, you can.
You can even if you don't wantto hire somebody like me on a
long-term basis.
You can get somebody to helpyou with that.
If you don't know how to do it,it's not really that difficult,
um, and then just start lookingat some basic things that will
(24:00):
help you, again, allied withwhat you're trying to do with
your site.
That will get you on the roadto starting to have some ideas
about what's working and what'snot working, and where you may
be spending a load of money onsocial media ads or something
like that that, honestly, isn'tpaying off for you.
(24:29):
Makes sense, amazing.
And where can people connectwith you after?
Yeah, like, where can peopleconnect with you online and on
their website?
There is this free ebook whichhas it's called Five Hidden Gems
and it has five stories from myexperience where we've made a
significant difference to thebusiness or to the website,
(24:52):
based on insights from analyticsthat we couldn't have otherwise
known.
This whole ebook is in English.
There's no charts or graphs inthe whole thing, but it's
designed to give you maybe someinspiration to say maybe that's
happening for us and we shouldcheck it out.
So that's a free e-book.
Please feel free to go and getit.
Alyssa (25:11):
That's great.
Well, thank you so much,philippa, for joining me today.
Thank you, it's been a pleasure, great and for everyone tuning
in.
Thank you for so much forlistening today and hanging out
with us.
I really hope you found thisepisode as helpful as I did.
I took a ton of notes and allof them are going to be in the
show notes, so make sure tocheck that out and make sure to
connect with Philippa as well.
(25:32):
Thanks so much, everyone, andI'll catch you next time on
another brilliant idea.
Thanks for tuning into thisepisode of Brilliant Ideas.
If you love the show, be sureto leave a review and follow me
on Instagram for even moreinsider tips and inspiration.
Ready to bring your next big,brilliant idea to life?
Visit alissavelsercom forresources, guidance and
everything you need to startcreating something amazing.
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