Meaningful analytic benchmarks and insights for 100+ websites?
-
Hey all!
I work for an association that has over 100+ member businesses. These businesses are dispersed through out North America and each have their own website, totally independent of each other in look, feel, functionality, etc.. While most of these businesses offer the same core businesses such as a gym, summer camp and preschool, none of the website structures, calls to actions, etc. are the same. I have a feeling that there could be some interesting and meaningful analytics that I could pull together if I had access to all their Google Analytics accounts, but I'm not quite sure what they would be. Some ideas I have -
1 - Percentage of traffic from social media - will give insight as to which businesses in the association are using social successfully.
2 - New vs. Returning traffic - a high percentage of returning traffic might be indicative of more useful websites.
3 - Mobile usage - How mobile savvy are the customers of different businesses in the association.
Any other analytics (and quite frankly, more meaningful/impactful than the ones I posted above) that you guys can think of?
Thanks for your help!
Chris
-
Great insights and suggestions - thanks for replying!
I'm hung up on the different size markets as well. Our association has sorted the 100+ businesses into different size brackets, but those are based on revenue as opposed to size of city (although there is definitely a correlation.)
Analytics like bounce rate though would be a benchmark regardless of the demo/size of the business' location.
-
In addition to what you said, I would also get:
-
unique visitors by time period x
-
possibly geographic area of visitors
-
bounce rate
-
time of day that visitors visit
I would then take all those metrics and then compare them among similar businesses, then similar businesses in similar sized markets and see what raw differences you can see. One of the problems which you would need to overcome is the difference in markets (both in size, preferences, etc). There are local differences which would need to be accounted for if you were to be able to have actionable items. Another challenge would be that every site is probably targeting different keywords to different cities and targeted demographics. That is another thing that you would need to normalize for. Also, each site is probably running on different platforms, etc so you would need to try to think about that aspect of the data because it would introduce noise into the data.
If you had the data, you may want to look into something called Multiple discriminate analysis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discriminant_analysis due to how many variables you are going to have. If you cannot do it yourself, there are statisticians out there who could help you set up the data in the right way. They are not cheap though...
-
-
DJ123,
I guess that is the question I am asking. If given the opportunity to have all that data, what kind of meaningful insights could I get from it? Ultimately I want to be able to report back to the members of my association and tell them how to make their websites better. Sorry for the vague response, but I ultimately want to know is it worth the time to collect all the data and if I do, what are some meaningful things I could do with it.
Thanks!
Chris
-
What would the goal be if you had all the data you wanted?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
No UTM codes, How do you track in Google Analytics?
I see that Moz recommends not to use UTM codes as some directories will not allow a listing with a UTM code. I like to use tracking codes for my Google My Business (GMB) links so I can differentiate traffic/conversions from organic/google. Does anyone have a solution to measure the two in Google Analytics?
Local SEO | | RichardDantas0 -
Should you set an hreflang if the website is only in one language
We have a website, which is written in British English. There are no other versions of the site in different languages and the website only serves a UK audience. We have not set an hreflang tag up. Is this something we would still need to do and what would the benefits (if any) be?
Local SEO | | HubMDP0 -
How should i Get Max Traffic To my website
Hello Dear Moz friends, I am New to This Forum, I just Want to ask How should I get maximum traffic to My website??
Local SEO | | falguniwpi
As i Have done All The things Correct, But i am Not getting Good traffic To my website, Posted on Forums, regular facebook posting, G+, But Still i am Not Getting good visitors to my website. Please Suggest me some Good Traffic Generation Sources, Thank you0 -
Duplicate content across a number of websites.
We have a client who has approximately 25 retail sites (mini department stores) selling in general the same merchandise ranges - some stores carry all the ranges (brands) while others have fewer due to space restrictions. Each destination is different has its own branding and unique selling point which needs to be reflected. The client wants us to build individual websites for each location as they want to promote each location individually. I know that the search engines don't penalise duplicate content, but the core of each website is going to be essentially the same. My concern is there is no way you could write 25 different pages about the same Colony Candle range! Any ideas suggestions would be much appreciated - a one site option would not work as the client wants individual website and due to the different branding, USP and the fact they want to market them individually I would agree with them. Thanks Fraser
Local SEO | | fraserhannah0 -
Benefits of "Buffer Websites" Marketing for Real Estate Firm.
A local seo firm has approached us and mentioned that we should incorporate something called buffer websites into our SEO. I work with a Houston based real estate agency that sells single family homes. In a nut shell they suggested that we create 5-10 separate standalone websites that each have 40-50 pages of unique copy for specific targeted keywords of our choosing. The idea would by that all these websites and copy would all point back to our main website and help generate substantial traffic. This concepts seems to have been a couple years ago and now sure if we should go this route. Would we be better off just building unique copy on the main site and not focus on the 5-10 websites we would need to deal with? C
Local SEO | | RETEX0 -
2 websites or one .ca and .com
Hi I have a client with a lighting business in Canada but ship to all US- they have ecommerce web site .ca and .com the .ca has always brought more traffic. (they have a store in Canada) they are now redoing the site and trying to decide should they have just one site and the other redirected to it or should they have two and which one the main one- they would like to sell to the us but are obviously stronger in Canada- don't want to lose on both sides.. Appreciate any help!
Local SEO | | maryk920 -
How to remove countries viewing my website
Hi All, I operate from the UK only. How can I exclude select countries from viewing both my organic website and Google Adwords listing. Organic Website
Local SEO | | Mark_Ch
Are the any free online services that give you a simple click + download/view script to cut & paste into a .htaccess file. Google Adwords
Ditto as above with the exception to paste the IP list into Campaign | Setting Tab | Advanced settings - IP exclusions Thanks Mark0