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72 August 2014 | beautystorebusiness.com Identifying your most pressing chal- lenges will keep you focused on pro- ductive data analysis, says Leone. ÒThe very first step is to ask yourself this question: ÔWhat business problem am I trying to solve?ÕÓ DonÕt rush to answer that question just yet. Instead, says Leone, engage in a three-step decision process. ÒFirst, talk with as many stakeholders as you can. Ask your staff members what problems they are encountering. You might hear things like ÔOur lead generation has slowed down.Õ Or ÔOur average order volume is declin- ing.Õ Second, come up with hypotheses to explain these problematic trends. Finally, gather the data from Web ana- lytics to test your hypotheses.Ó Leone offers one caveat: Make sure the prob- lem investigated is a valid one before you invest time attempting to discover its causes. ÒYou need to dig deep,Ó he says. ÒMaybe someone says ÔWe need more visitors to our website.Õ Stop and ask why. The answer might be ÔMore people mean more sales.Õ But is that really true? ItÕs easy to get a lot of visi- tors. You can buy ads, write blogs and do more social-media posts. But not all visitors are created equally.Ó The time spent attracting more non-buying visi- tors might be better spent elsewhere. SOCIAL MEDIA Social mediaÑand its related costsÑ has come under a tremendous amount of scrutiny by retailers. A member of your staff might say this: ÒOur problem is a diminishing number of Facebook posts.Ó But is that really a problem? Do Facebook posts really result in more sales for your store? That question sug- gests a more encompassing one: Is your social-media strategy as a whole really paying off? ÒYou are spending all this money to manage your social-media campaigns,Ó notes Leone. ÒBut what kind of payback are you getting?Ó Web analytics can help you answer that ques- tion by reporting the sources and buying behaviors of site visitors. For example, the data may show you get fewer visi- tors from your Twitter posts, but those people end up spending more money on higher-margin products than the visitors who emanate from your Facebook feed. Your conclusion might be to spend more time and effort posting Tweets. You can also measure how various types of Tweets attract visitors who buy. Perhaps practical or Òhow toÓ posts work better for you than sales announce- ments. If so, you can increase the fre- quency of the former. This social-media example illustrates a key point: You must avoid the common trap of overreliance on the process of data collection to the detriment of productive action. ÒA lot of companies believe they are data driven because they capture and report data,Ó says Leone. ÒEach month they get a huge report, read the numbers and then move on. They donÕt do any analysis or make productive decisions. If you are doing this, you are fooling yourself.Ó CAST A WIDE NET As the above comments suggest, Web analytics can tell you where your most profitable visitors are coming from, thus allowing you to take effective steps to draw still more of the right people to your site. Another way to attract more of the best visitors is to increase your effectiveness with SEO (Search Engine Optimization)Ñ technology that is described by Kasberger as Òthe science behind getting you found when people search for what you have.Ó In other words, SEO is intended to get your website listed higher in the results when people use search engines such as Google to find relevant merchandise or services. [See page 62 for more.] In practice, SEO and Web analyt- ics are complementary. ÒAnalytics and SEO go hand in hand,Ó says Kasberger. ÒSEO gets people to your website, and Web analytics help you understand what actions those people are taking once they arrive. Where did they come from? What pages did they visit on our site? How long did they stay there? And per- haps more important, did you have what they were looking for?Ó As you use the information from Web analytics to fine- tune your marketing strategy, your SEO will improve correspondingly. The result will be a happier, better-served customer pool and a healthier bottom line. ■ Phillip M. Perry is a New York City- based freelance writer. 10 BLADES/PACK -100 /CARTON THE BEST CHOICE BLADES FOR THE PROFESSIONAL I s Y o u r W e b s i t e P u l l i n g i t s L o a d ? . i n d d 7 2 Is Your Website Pulling its Load?.indd 72 6 / 2 6 / 1 4 4 : 4 6 P M 6/26/14 4:46 PM