Mini-survey: Google Analytics – which visitor makes a query?

Most companies (but not all) have set their marketing budget. The budget usually determines marketing channels and how much money can be spent on each of them during a certain period. The sad reality is that many companies do not follow the return on investments: how many sales, queries, newsletter subscribers etc. have been acquired.

One of the most important tools in internet marketing is analytics that gives insights into the return on investments and website effectiveness. A great tool is Google Analytics. It enables to follow and measure various trends and marketing effect on your business. Analytics give information about visitors and their behaviour on your page. You can even follow what sources bring you most conversion. It’s a free tool, so it’s available for everyone. Read also how to measure the effectiveness of your website with Google Analytics?

Analytics study

I made a mini-survey based on 10 WSI clients. The sample consisted of companies of various sizes and purposes of both B2B and B2C areas. The aim of the survey was to understand the behaviour of customers who make a query on a website: how does their behaviour differ from regular visitors’ behaviour?

I examined the general characteristics:

• Average visit duration
• Pages per visit
• Sources that bring the most queries

Results

Analysis revealed certain trends in consumer behaviour, according to whether or not the visitor made a query.

Average visit duration

Visitors who made a query spent on average 4,6 times more on a website than a regular visitor. It’s a big difference. For example, in a case where the average visit duration was 3 minutes, the visitor who made the query spent 13,8 minutes on a website.  What does it tell us? One of the conclusions is that people who are interested in making a query/purchase want to learn more about your products/services. Of course, there must also be a chance to get the most important information quickly. Nevertheless, thoroughly structured and informative website is a good source for queries. Detailed product/service information, quality pictures, professional videos, useful graphs, whitepapers, well-taught company page, team picture etc. –each detail greatest trust and encourages inquiries.

Pages per visit

Average pages per visit were 2,4 times higher when a visitor made the query . For example, a website with 3 page views per visit got 7,2 pages per visits when a query was made. Again, the conclusion can be made that the person who is interested in your products/services wishes to examine the site thoroughly before submitting a query.

Visit sources

On average, 74% of visitors who sent and inquiry came via Google search engine (41% via SEO, 33% via Google AdWords). This is a real example how important optimization and Google are. You can gain a lot of value, and what’s more important than getting sales and queries, when you concentrate on the right keywords.

Conclusion

For all companies that were studied during this mini survey the same trends occurred – visitor who submitted a query spent longer time on a website and visited more pages.  The conclusion is that a website has to be informative enough to offer the information to a visitor that needs to make a decision. A website is no longer just an online business card. There must also be considered the interests of those who want to make the query fast and offer shorter version of information. And of course – most queries come via Google!

Google