Millions of small businesses have made the decision to venture into the online world, in the hopes of being able to tap into the juicy revenues and e-commerce potential that so many other businesses have enjoyed. Search engine optimization is a basic element of this process, for sure, but all too many entities neglect other areas of the trade. One of these areas is analytics, which can help shed light on how effective your current strategies truly are. Every small business needs a set of web analytics in order to be in the know and to stay one step ahead of the competition. In the following article, we will discuss three tips you must utilize with your web analytics software to ensure long-term success for your small business.

Focus on Local Traffic

This seems like a bit of a no-brainer for a traditional brick and mortar business, but many small businesses expect to instantly begin attracting clients and customers from all across the world. The truth is that your small business will not have enough clout in the initial weeks and months to garner that kind of traffic. Whether you are pinging search engines with blog posts or products, there is a definite need and reason to focus locally. Many of your prospective customers may have not yet heard of your business; by targeting your efforts locally and verifying its success via analytics, you can gain valuable traffic and dominate select search results from the start.

Focus on Mobile Traffic

The quickest growing segment of online traffic is mobile traffic. Expected to become the predominant form of internet browsing in just a few years, mobile traffic is now more important than ever. Your business website should obviously be optimized to handle and cater to this type of traffic, but your analytics software should also be used to determine how well your content, products and services are being received. By inspecting bounce rates and CTRs, you can determine whether the latest advertising campaign via Google or social media outreach via Twitter and Facebook have had their desired effects.

Take Advantage of Control Panels

Your analytics software should offer some form of customized monitoring – akin to a dashboard – that can be used to request and observe select metrics about your website. These dashboards can help you keep the metrics that matter to your business most at the forefront 24/7. Some analytics suites will even offer daily or weekly reports of the selected information that can be emailed directly to you. As you are pinging search engines with valuable content and products, your control panel and dashboard should be pinging you with valuable information about its performance.

Conclusion

Any small business needs a comprehensive analytics suite in order to be aware of how well it is performing with select audiences and in various search results. Those who have just started monitoring key metrics would be well-advised to focus on local audiences, optimize content for mobile devices to ensure optimal performance and customize their control panels for maximum efficiency when it comes to quick data dissemination.