Businesses use websites as a central knowledge source for all things concerning the business’s history, products and services, and general operations. Websites are also one of the primary marketing tools a business has at its disposal for disseminating new information and drumming up new business.
This just goes to show how important it is for businesses to maintain and update their websites to ensure that, as a marketing tool, they are as effective as they can be. This means optimizing content and CTAs regularly based on visitor tendencies and interactions.
Businesses can determine just how they need to optimize their sites with the help of website tracking tools. Website tracking tools are essentially used to track visitors as they navigate the business’s website and record information about which pages they spend the most time on as well as which buttons or links they’ve clicked on.
What exactly are website tracking tools?
In order to fully grasp how to use website tracking tools for website optimization, you need to be aware of two terms. These terms are “tracking link” and “tracking pixel.”
A tracking link is a URL that has been generated by the tracking tool that can be used to track anonymous visitors coming to a website from external sources. It can be used for navigational links within the website as well and can also be used for a call to action.
A tracking pixel on the other hand is not a link, but an embeddable piece of code generated by the tracking tool that can be placed on a particular page of your website, which will track details specific to the visitors to the pages it lives on, such as where they came from, how long they stay on the page, and more.
These are the two most common tracker types available with website tracking tools that can be used to collect valuable data about visitors to your website. While tracking links can be used for marketing endeavors such as ads on social media and other mediums external to your business’s website (e.g. marketing emails), tracking pixels are limited in that they can only be used on your own site, embedded within the confines of your own code.
How can trackers help with website optimization?
When used in the right way, website trackers can assist businesses with determining which parts of their websites need to be optimized in order to better attract leads and conversions.
For example, let’s say you have a tracking pixel on the homepage of your business’s website. Each time a visitor lands on that page, this action gets registered in the tracking tool’s reports as a hit, regardless if the visitor does anything at all that page. However, the more they interact with the page, the more information the website tracking tool will gather about that specific visitor.
The information gathered on each website visitor is stored in the tracking tool’s report. In this report, you should be able to trace the actions of each visitor (identified by IP address) from the moment they enter your site to the moment they leave. These actions include what pages were visited, how long they remained on each page, which links they’ve interacted with, etc. A report is also able to tally the total number of visitors who have interacted with the website’s homepage and how many of the total number are from repeat visitors to the site.
This same information is available for each tracking link located on your website – from resource download links to CTA buttons to product links. Based on the number of interactions each link or pixel receives, your business can identify the less popular pages and trackers and make modifications to the content, design, or both in an attempt to make it more attractive and engaging to visitors. Oftentimes, simply making a CTA more visible and clear can do wonders for conversion and engagement rates.
Try SimplyCast’s Sonar application!
Along with some trial and error, website tracking tools have the ability to help businesses optimize their websites and, in the process, one of their primary marketing streams, resulting in more overall engagement from visitors as well as more conversions.
SimplyCast provides its users with Sonar, an application that can be used to create tracking links and pixels for businesses to leverage on their websites and in their marketing campaigns. Sonar provides businesses with the ability to track more information than simply who came in, what they did, and when they left; users can add tags to each visitor and other pieces of metadata that can be quite useful – especially if the anonymous visitor eventually makes themselves known to you through signing up or otherwise opting in.
Click the button below to request a demo of SimplyCast to see how Sonar can help your business optimize its website and capture all this valuable information.
