Diversify Products and Increase Profit
Take Maximum Advantage of Multiple Online Income Streams
Apr 2, 2009
Today with web analytics and other web based tools companies can monitor not only what customers are looking at on the company website but also what they are looking or searching for.
Get Website Analytics
The first step is to add an analytics based tool to a website. Companies can get these free from Google or get more in depth paid for services that can give real time stats. Using this data will help not only to know where people are going on the site but also what keywords brought them in and what marketing is and isn’t working so that the company can better focus resources.
Add a Search Facility to Websites
Add in a search box facility to the website enabling potential customers to search for products and services on the website. These can be added relatively cheaply and some search engines such as Google offer the technology for free. Help may needed by someone technical to help integrate it in to the website.
Monitor and Analyse Web Analytics
This is a crucial and often over looked part of running a website, monitoring the analytics and analysing the results as to what these mean to the company. It is not just enough to monitor number of visitors and the bounce rate and so on, although this information can be very important. Companies need to be able to look at where people are coming from in regards to referring site or keywords and where they are going.
Where the traffic is coming from, such as type of website or search engine, could indicate a potential for diversification. For example if th site is a technology based products website and the company gets a lot of visitors in from a referring gamers blog then they might want to consider selling gaming products and media.
Monitor the Keywords Used
On top of this by monitoring which keywords were used to find the site a company might be able to not only find a niche in the market place but also expand to offer the products that might be related to the subject matter of those keywords.
Monitor Searches On The Website
Another crucial area to monitor is that search box and the terms typed into it. The reason for this is that if a web surfer searches the website for a product but can’t find it they will move on somewhere else. But if a company can see what people are searching for on the site then they can consider selling that product on the site. This not only helps with customer retention but also adds income streams.
Learn to Listen
If a company learn to listen to their customers, whether it be through direct contact like email or phone or by monitoring their online search behaviour and blogs, then that company will not only be able to grow as an online business but also adapt to customer needs more easily.
Website analytics might seem like big brother to some but it actually brings marketers and companies closer to customer in a professional way that means they can understand their needs and react to them.
Diversifying – In Conclusion
In these hard economic times most companies are feeling the need to change the way they do business and diversify their product range and service. With a web business this is just as crucial but slightly easier to do because with web analytics can tell a company what their customers are looking for. All they need to do then is find out how to supply it to them.
