New Google tool gives small businesses a leg up

If you have embraced digital marketing strategies for your business, you know how important website analytics are.

Since your landing pages and website are the foundation of all your digital strategies, they must perform exceptionally well to be effective.

Google research indicates that nine out of ten people will leave a mobile website if they cannot find what they are looking for right away. That is a lot of leakage by any objective standard. Keeping a close eye on your analytics will help you pinpoint where the problems on your pages are and how to solve them.

A new Google Analytics tool provides a quick check of your website performance. 

Google announces a new tool

Google recently announced a new tool to help small businesses quickly assess their website performance in three key areas:

• mobile-friendliness
• page speed for mobile devices
• page speed for desktop devices

While Google has had other tools to make these assessments in the past, this new tool combines information from previous tools, making it a one-step process for busy marketers to use on the fly.

According to SearchEngineLand.com, the unique features of this tool are:

• the ability to get scores on all three components on one page
• a Google report which can be emailed to you for sharing with your webmaster team
• a 0 to 100 score about your mobile-friendliness, rather than just a pass or fail on the mobile-friendliness front

Concerning the new tool, the Google Small Business blog explains:

"You don't need a lot of technical knowledge to understand your site's performance. Just type in your web address and within moments you'll see how your site scores. You can also get a detailed report to give you an idea of what to do next, and where to go for help at no charge. We recommend sharing it with your webmaster to help you plan your next steps and implement our suggested fixes."

Using the power of analytics in digital marketing

While this Google's mobile website analysis tool will be a real help to determine where and how your site can be improved, digital marketers also understand that marketing analytics play a significant role in overall digital strategy.

Commenting on the role of website analytics and marketing analytics, HubSpot notes:

"Web analytics measure things a webmaster cares about, like page load times, page views per visit, and time on site. Marketing analytics, on the other hand, measure business metrics like traffic, leads, and sales, and which events (both on and off your website) influence whether leads become customers. Marketing analytics includes data not only from your website, but also from other sources like email, social media, and even offline events. Marketing analytics are also usually people-centric, featuring the prospect, lead, or customer as the unit of focus, whereas web analytics usually regard the page view as the unit of focus in its reports."

Gathering metrics from a variety of platforms gives you a 360
degree view of your marketing efforts. 

Therefore, to truly understand the totality of your marketing picture, you must use tools like Google Analytics in conjunction with other marketing analytics. The HubSpot article adds:

"The fact of the matter is, most marketers need to have a number of different marketing analytics platforms in place in order to glean all the insights they need to understand their marketing performance and, thus, make sound decisions."

Do you have a good grasp of which analytics truly matter for your organization? For help with determining which metrics matter and what they mean, contact us. As digital marketing experts, we can help you find and monitor the metrics that matter.

To learn more about some key metrics that can help you measure your marketing success, get your free copy of our eGuide, The six marketing metrics your boss actually cares about.

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