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Business owners need data to scale. We need it for inspiring stats about the growth of certain industries. We need it to deepen our relationships with our customers, to figure out what works for them and what doesn’t. Perhaps the need for data is what drives so many of my Google Digital Coach workshop attendees to pull out their phones and snap pictures of slides that illustrate about the growth minority and women-owned businesses. Data excites us!

Here are three tips when it comes to using measurement tools to grow your business online, like Google Analytics:

1.   Use the tools. Don’t just sign up for a Google Analytics account, and forget it. If all you are going to do is just take the step of putting the tracking code on your site…and never visiting the platform. Don’t bother, it won’t help your business. I know you are busy and have a lot on your plate. However, if your website is only reaching a portion of its potential audience that is probably because it’s not regularly being optimized and evaluated. Take some action steps: Make your strategies data-driven by scheduling in 30-60 minutes on a weekly or biweekly basis to visit your Google Analytics dashboard. Where are your visitors coming from? Are they leaving after a particular page? Are they completing the journey you envisioned for your customer? Do some evaluating and determine what you may need to revamp to make your calls to action more simple. Also if you see that your potential customer really enjoyed a certain type of content, you may need to amplify it.
2.   Decide what you want to look for. One reason why you aren’t using your Google Analytics as often as you should might be because you simply don’t know what to look for, or what to do with the information. That makes sense to me. To alleviate that feeling, think of one meaningful thing you’d like to measure consistently. Is it traffic growth? Is it the locations of site visitors? Is it knowing what web pages drive the most visits? Is it tracking which social sites your traffic is coming from? There is really so much to explore, so spend some time under the hood of your website so that you can understanding your data. Then narrow in on what you’d like to track.
3.   Do something with your discovery. Analytics are going to be less exciting if you aren’t using them to inform your business strategy. SO USE THEM TO BUILD YOUR BUSINESS STRATEGY! Once you’ve chosen your focus, come up with a monthly action step based on your findings. An example could be: if I know most people are spending their time on a particular page, I may want to replicate the content or format of that page and leverage it for other pages. Or, if most of my audience is based in Arizona, I may want to do some paid advertising in that market to grow that audience. Read case studies here.

Whatever your focus, you’ve got this!  Schedule that time in your calendar as a recurring invite to yourself right now to review your analytics! And more importantly, use that data to grow your business and your customer base  The more you know the better you can serve your potential customers online.

You can learn even more about online advertising from Angelina Darrisaw at this year’s Reinvention Weekend Conference Oct 6-7, 2017 in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Get Your Business Online team at Google.  She’ll be conducting a workshop presentation on building your business online leveraging Google tools.  Use the coupon code RWSBL to get $100 off of your ticket.

About the author

Angelina Darrisaw is a Career Coach Trainer and Expert Facilitator who helps companies retain & engage diverse millennial professionals with her C-Suite Coach business. She is also a highly regarded Google Digital Coach charged with bridging the digital divide for Black & Latinx Businesses. For more information http://www.thecsuitecoach.com/

About our sponsor

Google AdWords Express is a fully automated advertising solution specifically designed for small businesses and first-time advertisers. With AdWords Express, several types of ads are created and constantly optimized for you. We automatically show your ads on Google, Google Maps, and relevant partner websites, on both desktop and mobile. You don’t need to be an expert in online marketing and don’t have to spend much time managing your ad campaigns.