In our final installment of Volusion SEO tips, please find the transcript below helpful as you learn how to use the power of Google Analytics to take your marketing strategy to the next level!
Today we're going to talk about measuring the results of your campaign so far, and we're going to take a deeper dive into Google Analytics. So right now I'm logged into a Google Analytics account, which you can set up for free, and it's really easy to add Google Analytics to your website. They're just going to give you a tiny little piece of code that you copy and paste right into the Head of your store theme. It's super duper easy and then they'll start tracking all of the data that's going into your website. I highly recommend setting up Google Analytics as soon as you possibly can, ideally as soon as you start your website, because the more historical data you have, the better off you'll be in the long run.
First, I like to compare time ranges. So right now I'm comparing this month to last month to see what has happened since last month. Now you can see for this website since last month we've actually decreased a little bit. We've gone down by 11%. So now I have to figure out exactly what happened there and how we can move forward. And by the way, with that time range thing up there--one of the reasons that we like historical data is because ultimately you're going to want to compare this to a year-over-year chart. So month-over-month is really great for noticing any abrupt changes and turning things around as soon as you can. But year-over-year is actually the more accurate way to measure the success of an SEO campaign because it does take such a long time. So if you do have year-over-year data, definitely take a look at that as well. For now we're going to do month-over-month.
So I'm going to take a look at which channels have dropped here and where that 11% is coming from. Because while it can be alarming, it's possible that it wasn't an organic channel that dropped. So I'm going to go here, Acquisition, All Traffic, and then Channels. So now we can see that organic search was actually part of the problem. We have a 13% drop in organic traffic since last month. We can also see that Paid Search has taken a similar dive of about 10%, and Direct Traffic has also dropped by about 13%, so what this is showing me is that it's not isolated to Organic Search. So the situation may not be as dire as I initially thought it was, because this could just be a natural, seasonal trend. This particular site sells candy, so there were a couple of holidays we were working with that we're not working with anymore, so that could be a really natural cause of that drop.
So you're always going to want to take a look at the channels and compare them to each other, because that will help you tell the full story and let you know whether it's just the organic campaign that's suffering or if maybe there's a seasonal shift. I'm going to take a deeper dive into organic search here. I'm going to click on that. I'm still seeing that 13% drop, but on the plus side, the bounce rate has decreased, people are staying on the site for a little bit longer, and the Ecommerce Conversion Rate has gone way up, so at least the traffic that is getting to this site is behaving better once they get there, so that's great.
What I really care about is this revenue, and that has taken a dive. I'm going to toggle over to Ecommerce. We can see that revenue has decreased by almost 4%, which is not...relative to the 13% it's actually pretty good, which is why conversion rate is so important. The number of transactions has actually increased, which is interesting. So if I'm trying to tell the story of what happened here, I can say, "alright, so my Organic traffic did take a drop, but it was also comparable to the drop that Direct took, that Paid took, that some other channels took, which tells me that maybe it's just an issue of people not searching for the product as much this month as they were last month."
So there are a lot of ways that Google Analytics can help you out and show you how your campaign is going so far and where it's going next. I hope we've been able to provide you with a good foundation of getting yourself set up for success with SEO. If you need any help whatsoever in the future, my Marketing Services team is always here, so please don't hesitate to contact us.