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Dec
29
Google Analytics a Good Thing
December 29, 2005 | Anita Campbell
Back in mid-November 2005, Google announced that its Urchin website analytic product would be free to AdWords advertisers and smaller websites, re-branded as Google Analytics. The tool that once had been $495 per month, now cost nothing.
It sounded like a pretty big deal for the small business market. I wanted to test my assumption, and so I promised to do a review to see the impact on small businesses.
Google Analytics got off to a fast start … and then turned into a slow start.
There was such a groundswell of interest by legions of webmasters, bloggers and Internet etailers, that the system was overwhelmed and unavailable at times right after the announcement. As a result, data was slow in coming — and when it did come, some data was missing. Google Analytics even temporarily halted taking new customers.
Eventually, most of the initial bumps started to smooth out. Now that almost 45 days has passed, let’s step back and take a look at the response to Google Analytics and what it means to the small business market.
Overall the response has been positive, if you disregard the early performance bumps and downtime. Once the site outages stopped, and the data started trickling in, Google Analytics began to get good reviews. (After all, how much can you really complain about getting a valuable tool for free?)
Google Analytics is one more in a bevvy of new tools that empower small businesses to compete better online.
I believe that ultimately Google Analytics will fuel demand by small businesses for even more Web-related products and services. Small businesses will want more, more, more: more Web hosting, broadband access, search engine optimization services, Web design services, and search marketing aids. For small businesses and any company selling such products and services to small businesses, Google Analytics is good news.
Stay with me while I explain.
What Does Google Analytics Do?
Google Analytics is best suited for tracking the behavior of visitors once they reach a site. Website owners can evaluate how well landing pages are working, whether website copy is leading to sales conversions, what works best to drive newsletters sign-ups, and similar behaviors. This is information that previously was out of reach for most small websites, and available only to midsize and larger companies.
Google Analytics also provides general traffic statistics, such as where visitors come from and the number of visitors. However, it is actually rather cumbersome when used simply for visitor counts and referrer tracking. Most small website owners I talk with continue to use general traffic tracking applications such as Statcounter and Sitemeter, even if they also use Google Analytics. Why? Those tools are faster and easier to use. And they are free or very low cost even for the premium versions. Google Analytics can be overkill if all you want is simple traffic tracking.
On the other hand, if it is sophisticated tracking of internal website visitor behavior that you want, and the ability to analyze that data to make better marketing decisions, Google Analytics is unparalleled by any other free solution. Small businesses now have access to detailed statistics at a level they simply have never had before. Period.
Recommended Web Tools has a series of in-depth reviews of Google Analytics, in case you want to learn more about the types of information it provides and how to best to leverage that information: Overview, Marketing Summary, and Conversion Summary.
Who is Google Analytics Best Suited To?
The biggest impact of Google Analytics is likely to be on smaller businesses that would not have been able to afford sophisticated analytics previously. For instance, InternetWeek noted:
“By providing entry-level Web analytics, the company may draw small businesses that haven’t used analytics before into this market and ultimately expand it.”
What will Google Analytics Mean for Small Businesses?
Somewhere between the DotCom crash and today we crossed the point between most small businesses asking “do I need a Web presence?” to asking instead ”how do I get a Web presence?”. Soon the primary question will change to “what can I do to improve my Web presence?”.
Google Analytics is one of a number of products and services that will arm small businesses to be more successful and more sophisticated in their overall Web efforts.
Google Analytics levels the playing field between large businesses and small businesses. It will provide small businesses with previously unheard of levels of data and information they need to compete better online and drive more business.
It is versatile enough to be used by online retailers, content websites, and even small businesses that use their websites solely to promote offline businesses.
For instance, Dennis McDonald, a management consultant, recently started using Google Analytics to better understand his own website, All Kind Food. One of the things he learned was which parts of his site are the most important to his overall online presence. He added this in an email to me:
“Anything that helps a business improve the targeting of its customers is a good thing. Google Analytics can help any business, large or small, to generate useful reports. For example, it has a built-in capability to track different sales campaigns, and it will tell you which pages are being visisted and which lead to other transactions within your site.
Even though it’s free, you still have to take the time to learn to use it, and it really helps if you’re comfortable with analyzing data. But once you learn the structure and terminology, you’ll find yourself making improvements to your web site.”
What Will Google Analytics Mean for Products/Services Aimed at Small Businesses?
It is early days, and small businesses are just beginning to experiment with and learn how to use Google Analytics. We will need to look back in a year and see the impact of Google Analytics then.
When we do, I think we will see that it is one more product that helps increase the market share of smaller online retailers, smaller content websites, and even promotional sites for small offline businesses. As smaller businesses get more successful on the Web, that in turn will lead to more demand by small businesses for Web related services and products.
Consider what the Internet Stock blog recently noted:
“Of the $26 billion in sales that are projected for Internet retailers this holiday season, about 45 percent will go to small retailers, according to Forrester Research, up from 42 percent last year.” So reports Bob Tedeschi in the New York Times (no reg req’d version). There are two key reasons:
1. It’s now cheaper and easier than ever for small retailers to get online. E-commerce software is now hosted, rather than requiring installation, and its price has fallen dramatically. Hosted e-commerce solutions are offered by Yahoo Stores, eBay’s ProStores, NetSuite and others.
2. Small retailers can attract traffic by buying keyword ads from Google and Yahoo.”
David Jackson, the Editor of the Internet Stock blog, goes on to say that you need to look at the market according to whether a company competes with these small etailers, or instead serves these small etailers.
And I think that’s a key point. Google Analytics is good news for small businesses and also for the bevvy of providers out there hawking services to the small biz market for their online Web presences. It can fuel demand for other online products and services that small businesses need to be successful. Once small businesses get a taste for what they can achieve online, they will be willing to spend more on services and products to help them answer that question, “what can I do to improve my Web presence?”.
