Your website is the main hub for all the data you collect as a business. It’s where a lot of customers and potential leads will likely come to when interacting with your company. With that being said, it’s a great source of information that can help provide growth to your business in many ways.
Having an understanding of the personal data available can help make necessary changes to your website. Whether it’s improving functionality or adding in new features your customers will engage with. This article will share the importance of data collection and how to use it in order to improve your site.
In 2021, it’s important to spend time perfecting your website, especially as there are more than 1.88 billion websites out there. That’s a lot of competition!
Why is personal data important for your business?
Whilst being able to help better your website, personal data can be majorly influential for the rest of your business.
Data can help provide a deeper understanding of the market you’re in and what your customers want from you. It can help focus on your consumers and how to effectively market the business so that the content is seen by those you’re trying to target.
For many organizations, 97.2% to be exact, are investing in big data and AI technology. Data can lead to a lot of success if it’s acquired, managed and utilized in the right way for your business.
Five ways to better understand data for your website
As a business, you may be struggling to sift through the existing data that you have. There are some useful ways below that can help better grasp the data you have and how you can continue to collect more valuable data in the future. Here are five ways that will help you understand the data you have and how to use it for your website.
1. Use web analytics for more detailed insights
There are likely multiple methods in which you can collect data on your customers. One example could be through any sales or leads you convert into paying customers. Another might be sign-ups to your newsletter and getting information through the forms you create.
However, for the most part, web analytics that track the traffic coming on to the site are the most powerful. According to W3Techs, Google Analytics is used by 86% of all the websites that use a traffic analysis tool. The reason why this software is so powerful and used by many is due to it being part of Google itself.
The collection of personal data can be achieved somewhat through Google Analytics. It can collect data such as the user’s geographic location, their age and gender, as well as their behavior on the site itself.
Using a platform like this can help provide more insight into your users and who your target audience are. As a business, you may be aware of who you’re targeting but the reality of who is engaging, might be slightly different.
The benefits of using Google Analytics can be endless. They can help gather data that’s useful for content creation and to find new ways of converting those users into customers. Probably the most beneficial part of the platform is that for the most part, it’s free to use.
For small businesses and start-ups that are limited with their funds, a platform like this can be highly effective and useful to take full advantage of.
2. Consider how you store and manage your data
The way businesses and some individuals store and manage their data has changed significantly. Since many acts regarding consumer privacy have come into fruition, there are strict guidelines that need to be followed depending on where you’re located.
For example, the California consumer privacy act is one that ensures all businesses with over 50,000 customers are using their customer’s data in the right manner. The act gives the customers the opportunity to opt out and to know how their information is being used. Much like the EU’s GDPR, it’s in place to help protect its residents and their personal information.
To avoid the headaches and stress that come with these privacy acts, it’s important to look at how you’re storing and managing your data. These amendments and privacy acts will continue to crop up, so it’s beneficial to start making those changes now if you haven’t done so already.
Data storage management can help manage the volume of data coming up into your business so that you don’t get overwhelmed. Cisco UCS Manager is one of many that’s a popular choice to store your data securely and efficiently.
There are benefits to improving this process when it comes to your website. For example, using Osano, you can create the right forms and privacy notices to collect data correctly. More importantly, your website and business will end up being more compliant as a result.
3. Focus on user experience
When creating a website or product like an app or software, a lot of the development process will involve a focus on user experience and the user interface. They’re two important elements that contribute to the overall success of the product itself.
Did you know that if a website takes more than 3 seconds to load, 40% of people will end up leaving your website? Being attentive to the quality of your user experience and how effective it is, will make your relationship with your consumers a lot stronger.
There’s a significant amount of personal data that you can attain from those web analytics platforms when on the subject of user experience. For your website, data on user flow, how they come on and off the website can utilize the web pages that are the most active.
How fast a web page loads or what CTAs you have in place already can come from what personal data you may already have. One call-to-action might be performing better than others and it’s good to have that available data to understand why that may be.
By improving user experience, it’s ultimately going to boost the customer’s engagement on your site. This can contribute to better quality traffic and more conversions to sales than simply users just browsing the site.
4. Look at what content they’re engaging with mostly
Content for most businesses online, is a powerful one. There’s a lot of personal data that you can gather when it comes to what content is being interacted with and which in particular, are being engaged with mostly.
This isn’t just limited to your website either. You may have content on different social media channels and that link back to your website. Through tracked links, you can get a clearer picture of what content is influencing user’s to come over to your site.
Again, web analytics can provide much in the way of useful data that can help your marketers and content creation team to perfect its web page content. For your website, content is important to help improve SEO and the online presence of your website.
It’s why a good content schedule needs to be in place so that your website is a constant and reputable source of information. The personal information you take from your website’s analytics can be useful to creating the best content that they’ll want to see.
5. Use personal data to improve sales through your site
Sales are obviously a very critical part to running a business and personal data can be a great help in improving these through your site. There’s a lot of sales data that you might already have available to you that you can look at to see what’s popular and whether any upsells or deals or discounts have been redeemed too.
Sales data can be a helpful insight into what changes need to be made and what can remain the same. Those products or services that are performing well can help you replicate that success again and again through future creations.
When it comes to sales analytics, it’s worthwhile using a software like Hubspot Sales Hub. By using the personal data that you already have, you can use this sales CRM to improve sales engagement as well as richer insights and warmer leads. For any business, improving sales is essential and having a sales platform like this one can be highly valuable.
There are lots of sales platforms to make use of depending on what you need for your business. Hubspot Sales Hub is a great place to start your research.
Don’t sleep on personal data for your website
Collecting and utilizing personal data for your website can be helpful in many ways. Whilst it may prove challenging as the company grows and the volume of data increases, it can provide great insight and influence to your website’s performance.
Find ways to collect personal data that can help develop and provide more efficiency to your website in 2021.