Why are web analytics dashboards important?
The information gleaned from analytics dashboards could potentially contribute to a shift in business direction, though the extent of this impact may fluctuate. Understanding the effectiveness of your campaigns is one element, but you should also think about being able to access everything in one place (rather than having to visit another website).
Below is a list of considerations to know when you think about incorporating an analytics dashboard in your website builder.
- Data-Driven Decisions: Leverage real-time insights and understand what this information means for your success or failure. The accuracy of data attained should influence future marketing decisions you make.
- User Experience: Analytics dashboards showcase your users’ pain points and behaviors. You should then use this information to think about where you need to optimize your website and content. After doing this, analyze your user metrics and compare the results.
- Campaign Effectiveness: Businesses should use website analytics dashboards to determine whether their marketing campaigns are achieving the goals they’ve set out or not. This is important for return on investment (ROI).
- Market Monitoring: Use the dashboard to analyze your company’s performance in comparison to your key competitors and the market as a whole.
Despite the advantages, you’ll also need to think about these elements.
- Information Overload: Aim to simplify and prioritize data to avoid overwhelming the user. Utilizing a simple dashboard with the information you need, such as Hocoos’s, is one way to do this. You should also know how to analyze your data and determine what it means; practice this as much as possible.
- Implementation: You can consider website builders with built-in dashboards to streamline your setup process, as setting up one from scratch can potentially take more time.
What key features should a website builder’s dashboard include?
Each site builder has a different approach to analytics dashboards, and because of this, you should first understand the most important features. Below are some core elements to consider so that you can make your decision.
- KPI Accessibility: You need to measure your statistics against your goals. For this reason, your dashboard needs to have access to KPIs and the metrics that impact these.
- Design: You should pick a dashboard with clear hierarchies and layouts. For example, Hocoos uses cards and graphs to present data. You can also filter based on dates, etc.; avoid using layouts you don’t understand in other builders.
- Relevance: The data in your dashboard needs to be relevant; more isn’t always better. Understand the most important metrics you need to track and focus on site-builders with these.
- Data Visualization: While you want a simple interface, it should still have enough data (and be customizable enough) so that you can monitor your information.
How do I choose the right dashboard for my business?
Before doing anything else, you must sit down and write out your business objectives. Think about how a website builder’s analytics dashboard could help you meet your needs or do the opposite, and critically assess each platform based on these. Elements to consider are:
- Metrics you need to track
- Whether you or someone else will use the dashboard
- The sources of your data
- Timeliness of data (i.e. real-time or historical; in some cases, you may need both)
Once you know the answers to the above, you should assess all of your options. Look not just at user-friendliness, but whether the tool meets your pricing categories. You should also look at features as a whole and determine whether these will help you grow your business in the long run.
A small business owner, for example, may just need something to showcase visitors, revenue, and expenses. Understanding which pages perform better than others will also be essential.
How can I personalize the user experience using a dashboard?
How you personalize your user experience through dashboards will depend on your business type and the industry you serve. To use these, you should think about your audience’s needs and how they interact with your website.
An online store selling knitwear could, for example, create dashboards with products that users have already expressed an interest in. You should also think about order-tracking and account management. This may require some experimentation, so try different elements and iterate over time.
How can you track website progress over time?
Tracking website progress is vital for future growth, but before doing this, you need to know how to. The first thing to do is understand your specific objectives. It could relate to any of these:
- Sales
- Brand awareness
- Website traffic
You should then pick the metrics that relate to your definition of success. This will be different depending on your business type; while a blog may prioritize site visitors, an eCommerce store will focus more on overall revenue.
After doing this, set goals and benchmarks. Give your statistics some time to build, and understand the timescales that will likely be involved in getting close to your goals.
How can I identify areas for improvement on my website?
After setting up your analytics dashboard, you then need to know which areas you’ll have to identify for change. You should do this by auditing your website based on the data you see. Several elements will play a role here, and you must understand all of them:
- Website/page loading speeds
- Internal and external linking
- Overall website health (e.g. page redirects)
You should also look at your website design; it needs to be optimized for web and mobile. One way to do this is by picking a responsive theme or using an AI website builder, such as Hocoos, to manage the technical aspects for you.
Besides doing your own audits, it’s also very important that you gather customer feedback. Ask your website users which areas they find easy to navigate and where they think you should make improvements. Optimizing content and ensuring that it’s up-to-date is also imperative; go through your existing content regularly.
All of these elements are very important for:
- Search engine rankings
- The overall user experience
Revisit every aspect as often as needed, and if needed, hire a technical team to implement these changes.
Conclusion
You should review your site analytics dashboard regularly to discover insights about user engagement and behavior. This applies to bloggers, eCommerce stores, and other business types. Learning about which metrics to track is vital, and this will largely depend on the specific objectives that you have laid out for yourself.
In addition to understanding which metrics to track, you also need to know what to look out for in your dashboard. It’s very important that you pick something that you and your team can easily navigate. Moreover, while it shouldn’t be overloaded with information, you do need to make sure that at least the most essential ones are there.
Once you’ve implemented your dashboard, you will also need to iterate over time – based on the data that you receive.
