Ok, imagine you have a popular website for a large consumer products company. Now imagine you're getting a LOT of calls to your call centre. Your call centre tells you that the number one reason why people call is a billing inquiry.

Yet, your website has plenty of information about billing, and people can even log in to view their bill plus explanations online. So why would people call when the information is right there?

Well, maybe the information is hard to find online. Or perhaps the contact page is too easy to find. Maybe people are just too lazy to look because it makes no difference to them whether they look online or just call you (except of course they might wait 15 minutes on hold because your call centre is so darn busy, which does not make for happy customers or happy call centre managers).

So what would you do? Bury the phone numbers deep in the website? Increase the visibility of the help section? Encourage people to view their bills online by giving them a monetary incentive to do so?

The answer? Well, there is no direct answer, but you can find out by using the power of... you guessed it.... web analytics! With proper tracking, you can find out how people find the contact page, how people interact with your help section, and track subscribers to your Ebill feature. Finding out what you really need to know won't be completely simple, but at least you won't be spending time, dollars and resources shooting in the dark.

If you intend to use your website to make money, you need web analytics. If you're a large corporation that wants to make more money from your website, you REALLY need web analytics. Beyond numbers though, you need interpretation. Someone who is experienced in all things Web and preferably marketing as well can offer insight as to what the numbers really mean, and how to act on them. Page views and visitors while interesting on a certain level, will not help you make business decisions.

Feel free to check out our analytics articles or contact us for more details on how to get more out of your website.