In a month when nightmares roar and fear roams the streets, many entrepreneurs are being haunted by a curse close to home: website conversions … or the lack thereof.
 
It’s midnight and they sit by the flickering of candlelight, refreshing Google Analytics and stressing over how to get the results they want (and deserve).

Sound familiar?
 
As a website designer, I’ve dedicated my career – and life – to helping creative female entrepreneurs achieve their dreams by gifting them with a digital presence that captures the heads and hearts of their dream audience.
 
The truth is there’s a cure for crappy conversions but right now it simply seems out of reach because the gatekeeper (AKA Google Analytics) has a reputation of being wickedly confusing.
 
Rude.
 
Light up your lantern and grab your notepad while I take you beyond the gates of Google Analytics and show you 3 easy-to-use features for conjuring up conversions and beating the curse of the horrible website.

1. Traffic! AKA The number of users

Users are the number of unique individuals visiting your website over a given period of time. You can also track sessions which are the number of times that visitors actively engaged with your site (which is almost always more than once!).

How to find it and use it:

This fancy pants metric can be found on the home screen of Google Analytics or by clicking on the ‘Audience’ tab and then locating the ‘Active Users’ tab. 

Knowing your total number of users (monthly, for instance) will help you calculate your conversion rate. For example; if you have had 100 users visit your website during the last 30 days and noted 10 contact form submissions during that same time you’ve had a 1% conversion rate for enquiries that month. Use the simple formula [number of form submissions] / [number of users] x 100 to calculate the percentage. Et Voila!  

Better than candy! Here’s a tip:

Want to get more specific with conversions? You can easily track conversions for specific pages and goals. So, say you wanted to find out your Freebie conversion rate, simply enter the URL of your freebie page next to the magnifying glass at the top of Google Analytics and hit enter. The page view results will appear on the right-hand side. Use the simple formula [number of freebie sign-ups in your email software] / [number of freebie page users] x 100 to calculate the percentage. 

2. Bounce Rate

Your bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who landed on your site but who left without taking an action. They basically came, saw, and ‘bounced’ away without even watching a video or navigating to another page (kinda like when I scroll through horror movies on Netflix, get spooked by the cover art, and hit exit before choosing one to play).

How to find it and use it:

You can find this metric on the home screen of Google Analytics or by clicking on the ‘Audience’ tab and heading to ‘Overview’. 
 
Many websites will see a bounce rate between 26% and 70% with the average being between 45% and 65%. Some of the biggest reasons visitors will leave your website without taking action are that their questions weren’t quickly answered, poor user experience with unengaging content, and a lack of calls to action. 

Better than candy! Here’s a tip:

Remember that there are also other factors like your traffic sources that can impact your results and sometimes a high bounce rate isn’t necessarily bad. For example; if you’re running Facebook ads to a landing page for a freebie or paid offer, you’re sending a large amount of cold traffic to a page that just may not interest the audience to take the next step of signing up or buying on their first interaction. 

3. Behavior Flow

One of my faves! Behavior Flow is the visual path that shows how users traveled from one page to the next. Plus, it identifies where they dropped off!

How to find it and use it:

You can find this metric by clicking the ‘Behavior’ tab and heading to ‘Behavior Flow’.

You’ve probably heard me mention the term user journey and how important it is to map this out before building your site, right? Well, this IS the exact journey your user has taken on your site! It can show you what content keeps users engaged with your site as well as help you identify potential content issues. #winning

Better than candy! Here’s a tip:

Hover over each start page in the Behavior Flow to see the drop-off rate of your visitors. This will show you what pages you need to spend time on trying to get your visitors to go deeper into your site rather than leaving straight away. First, look at your content, and then your calls to action.

So, are you ready to re-enter your Google Analytics account now that you know it’s not so scary after all? Using the above tips as your flashlight I hope you can avoid the eerie shadows and lurking confusion and start tracking your visitors and their actions!

Still stuck (or spooked) by your website? Grab my FREE Homepage Blueprint here