---
title: How to Use Website Analytics to Drive Business Growth
description: Take a closer look at how website analytics should inform marketing and sales efforts. Learn how you can use actionable data to drive business growth!
---

[B2B Marketing Insights | Open Path Digital ](https://www.openpathdigital.com/blog)

# [How to Use Website Analytics to Drive Business Growth](https://www.openpathdigital.com/blog/website-analytics-drive-business-growth)

 Written by [Open Path](https://www.openpathdigital.com/blog/author/open-path) | February 14, 2021

So, you’ve got a great website and what you believe to be useful content for visitors to interact with. You’ve noticed website traffic is up, but you’re not sure exactly *why*. Certainly, it has *something* to do with all that great content you’ve made available, but why, *specifically*, is it working, and how can you take advantage of that to continue to develop content and drive website traffic?

**The key to understanding what’s working is looking at your *****website*** ***analytics*****.** Here, you discover the specifics behind what content development is working and what content development is not. Keep in mind that while website analytics are essential for understanding your success, **digging deep into website analytics can be an extremely***** overwhelming and time-consuming***** process.** 

 

You’re likely to run into questions like:

 

- What is the *conversion rate,* and is mine good? 
- What does *bounce rate* mean, and how is my online content performing?
- What is a good length of time for a *web session* or *website visit*? 
- Why is this random page performing much better than my other website pages?

Sometimes, looking at website analytics feels like interpreting another language! Clearly, all this information means *something*, but what does it mean and how is it indicative that your website content is working?

 

## How do Website Analytics Inform Marketing and Sales?

 

All of these technical terms that pop up when you look at your website analytics are geared to help you establish and measure what the industry calls ***benchmarks and baselines***. These are helpful metrics for determining content performance and to tell you how consumers ***find***** your content**, how they ***value***** your content**, and how they’re ***responding***** to your content**. Your *baseline*, then, is how you’re *currently *performing in these categories. Your *benchmark* is how you’re performing compared to the rest of your industry. So, what does this mean for your company’s marketing and sales efforts?

 

### How Marketing Teams Can Use Website Analytics to Measure Success

 

In marketing, your benchmark performance can be separated into different factors. One factor is studying what impacts consumer website visits. Another is looking at what impacts your lead generation. 

To do this, look at how many website visitors [convert to leads](https://www.openpathdigital.com/blog/generating-b2b-sales-leads), then research how many of these have turned into marketing-qualified leads. How many leads become interested in getting a demonstration, quote, or price? How many leads are requesting a sample? Pay attention to any activity that indicates a website visitor has been through the initial education process and wants to take the process to the next step.

> Related Content: [The Buyer’s Journey: How B2B Customers Find Your Business Naturally](https://www.openpathdigital.com/blog/the-buyers-journey)

 

### How Sales Teams Can Use Website Analytics to Track Lead Progress

 

On the sales side, it’s beneficial to track open and expiring quotes. With customer relationship management (CRM) software, such as Hubspot, you can set up sales sequences that automatically go out to the client if a quote hasn’t been signed or returned. This effort is using analytics to inform automated marketing and enables you to move the process along while also tracking the data that can be analyzed. 

Without website analytics, you’re most likely taking action that isn’t based on an informed marketing decision. **Before making any kind of business decision, you want to know what’s working and what isn’t**. Why advertise in a trade magazine if you have the data to prove that tactic doesn’t work for your company? 

Analytics help you know *where* and *how* to spend your money and produce a good return on your investment. 

 

### What's the Starting Point for Using Website Analytics?

 

The clearest and best way to begin digesting website analytics is to establish a baseline of where you are in these three areas:** conversion, lead generation, **and** website traffic.** 

These three are crucial in understanding how marketing-qualified leads are being generated and how well you’re closing on them. After these baselines are measured, you can then see how they perform in relation to the established industry benchmarks. This information will also provide you with insight into what steps you need to take next. 

Secondly, you’ll want to separate these metrics and study them carefully. For example, within website traffic, you’ll want to look at search engine optimization (SEO) and see if there’s any technical issue with your website appearing on search results. 

Is your website too loaded with data and not responding properly? Is it not optimized for search engine results? All of these are factors that you’ll need to explore as they impact your website analytics. You’ll also want to study your click-through rate (CTR) since it’s an important indicator of how successful your online campaigns are. 

 

> Related Content: [Why Website Analytics Will Save Your B2B Company in 2021](https://www.openpathdigital.com/blog/website-analytics-for-b2b-companies)

 

### What Are the Best Website Analytics to Improve First?

 

Now that you’ve discovered your baseline metrics and have compared them to the industry benchmarks, you can use analytics to determine what is working and what isn’t. **Usually, companies digging into their analytics for the first time find two issues where they are underperforming: *****website traffic***** and *****lead generation*****.** That is, not as many people are finding their website as they would have hoped, and not enough people are interacting with the content on the site’s pages.

There are many factors to consider when trying to get visitors to your website. Here are a few to consider:

- How can your website quickly explain what your company is about? 
- How can your website resonate with the visitor’s problems? 
- Does your website communicate a solution visitors can have confidence in? 
- Try to look at your website from a consumer’s point-of-view: How would *they* answer these questions?

> **Related Content: **[How to Use Google Trends to Analyze Your Company’s Digital Presence](https://www.openpathdigital.com/blog/google-trends)

 

### Next Steps to Using Analytics for Business Growth

 

Now that you know what you’re looking at, try these methods out on your own website. How is performance when you compare your baselines with the industry benchmarks? Or, maybe all of this is just a little too overwhelming to even begin to interpret. That’s okay! You’re not alone.

[At Open Path Digital Solutions,](https://www.openpathdigital.com/talk-to-a-growth-strategist?hsCtaTracking=0771ef0a-c2fb-49f6-8cd2-9cbaadbef4e9%7C40b57b76-f553-4652-afaf-19adb97e8925) we talk with clients every day and help them dissect their company’s website analytics. Maybe taking a look at your website analytics has revealed issues with your website that you simply don’t know how to fix internally. At Open Path, we specialize in sifting through the data, explaining it to our clients, and empowering clients to make decisions about their marketing.

 

### **Your Trusted Partner for Data-Driven Business Growth**

 

If you feel overwhelmed when it comes to data-driven business growth, we can help! We work with B2B companies to help them both interpret their analytics and improve baseline performance. If you need help with either interpretation or execution, we’ve got the resources and personnel to turn your website into a lead generation Growth Engine. [Put our experience and expertise at your disposal](https://www.openpathdigital.com/analytics-and-b2b-strategy).

 

[View full post](https://www.openpathdigital.com/blog/website-analytics-drive-business-growth)

```json
{
  "@context" : "http://schema.org",
  "@type" : "BlogPosting",
  "author" : {
    "@type" : "Person",
    "name" : "Open Path"
  },
  "dateModified" : "2023-06-08T20:23:37.956Z",
  "datePublished" : "2021-02-14T22:01:26Z",
  "headline" : "How to Use Website Analytics to Drive Business Growth",
  "image" : {
    "@type" : "ImageObject",
    "height" : 853,
    "url" : "https://www.openpathdigital.com/hubfs/website-analytics.png",
    "width" : 1280
  },
  "mainEntityOfPage" : "https://www.openpathdigital.com/blog/website-analytics-drive-business-growth",
  "publisher" : {
    "@type" : "Organization",
    "logo" : {
      "@type" : "ImageObject",
      "height" : 60,
      "url" : "/hs/hsstatic/content_shared_assets/static-1.4092/img/default-amp-logo.png",
      "width" : 60
    },
    "name" : "B2B Marketing Insights "
  }
}
```