3 Web Reports Every Marketer Should Be Looking At Right Now
COVID-19 and the resulting shift of many employees working from home has caused a massive shift in how online users are accessing information for both personal and work purposes. With these behavior changes come a shift in how marketers need to analyze these changed behaviors and habits. During the pandemic, 53% of Americans called internet access essential and many are spending more time online than ever before. While the normal metrics tracked (daily visitors, traffic sources, pages visited, etc.) remain important, there are 3 metrics whose importance has skyrocketed in recent months:
Understanding which words people are using to search and find your website is important under any condition, but when consumers are searching in new ways, keyword research can help you create targeted advertising campaigns and engaging content. Tools such as Google Trends, SEMRush or Google’s Keyword Planner show what words people are using to search on different topics. By identifying what words people are using and when they are searching, marketers can stay ahead of the curve when creating content and help improve overall search engine optimization (SEO) too.
Take the search query “board games,” for example. By plugging it into all three tools, we learn that the normal seasonality for the query peaks in December as people are looking for gifts. Google Trends can also tell us that this year it spiked again as stay-at-home orders were issued and people were looking for things to do inside. SEMRush shows a list of websites currently showing on Google’s search results page and the Keyword Planner provides a list of related queries to understand what else people are looking for with these results.
Using this information, a board game marketer can see how searches are changing in the current climate and adjust search campaigns, website copy and email marketing strategies. Not a board game company? Dozens of categories have experienced an increase in searches. Parents searching for at-home activities for the little ones, millennials learning new skills like guitar or crochet and men of all ages trying their hand at a #CoronaCut.
With consumer behavior changing at such a rapid pace, it is now as important as ever to understand how websites are being used. These three metrics/reports can help shed a light on how users are accessing your website, when and what they are looking for, which, in turn, can help you create a seamless, relevant experience and increase your return on your digital marketing.
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