April 21, 2009
Our next guest Etsy Success contributer is Noadi. Noadi (real name: Sheryl) is a super helpful Etsy seller who knows a lot about networking and has a great blog and Twitter account. (Curious about Twitter? Come on by my Indie Biz Chat in the Virtual Labs tomorrow afternoon at 5pm EDT!) They're all yours, Sheryl!
Hello Fellow Etsians,
For my guest spot editing the Etsy Success Newsletter I decided to focus on stats, mainly how to use Google Analytics. I really believe that launching Web Analytics is one of the best tools Etsy has given sellers recently. The in depth information you can get from analytics can really help you fine tune your efforts at promotion and advertising.
The Long View
A couple weeks ago Etsy held a Virtual Lab all about Analytics (which sadly I had to miss). However, they put up a recap of the chat and a great PDF that has step-by-step instructions for setting up your Etsy shop's analytics.
Editor's Note: Check out Etsy's Web Analytics FAQ, too!
The Next Steps
Handmadeology has this informative video that gives you an overview of Analytics and what kinds of statistics it can give you. For more good videos check out the official Google Analytics Youtube Channel.
Now What?
Blog Handmade has a great series of posts about using some of Analytics more advanced features. You can learn how to track your Project Wonderful ad clicks, internal Etsy traffic, better track where and when you have the most visitors, and a lot more useful information.
So assuming you've had analytics set up for a while (at least 30 days) what do you do with the data? Here are a few things to look at:
- Over time, are you receiving more, less, or steady numbers of visitors. This will give you a general idea about whether your efforts to bring in visitors are working.
- If you are running ads, you can track how many visits they're bringing you and whether those visitors are immediately leaving or staying and looking around. If your ads aren't effective, then look into editing the text, refining the keywords used, or changing the sites you advertise on.
- Find out if you're coming up in Google searches and under which keywords. You can then take that data and adjust your SEO efforts.
- Check your bounce rate and average pages per visit. If your bounce rate is very high 60%+, and/or your visitors are viewing only one or two pages per visit, you might have a problem with the type of visitors you are getting. Sheer numbers look good but you want visitors who are interested in your shop. Try to track down which sources of traffic have the highest bounce rate or lowest number of pages per visit and cross that source off your list of places in which to promote.
- Track how visitors are finding your site from other areas on Etsy (see Blog Handmade for more help).
This is only scratching the surface of ways you can use your stats. Take some time and explore analytics and play with it to learn how it works.
Sheryl Westleigh
Noadi's Art on Etsy
Want to recommend a future guest curator? Maybe you've got some stellar success tips to share? Email daniellexo with suggestions and contact information.
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