Where Are Your Website Visitors Coming From?

By Dave Westfall

One of the questions I’m asked most by Elopement Vendors is…. ‘Where are my website visitors coming from?‘ or ‘How do I know how many Referrals or Leads you are sending us?’ So, to answer those questions, we have decided to put together a blog post to explain where your website traffic is coming from and how you can see how much of it is coming from WhereToElope.com in the form of Referrals, Clickthrus aka LEADS.

First of all, let’s do a quick overview of what a Referral actually is. You may see a Referral called a Lead, a Click, or even a Clickthru, but all of these terms are more or less the same thing and in Internet Marketing are used interchangeably.

Setting Up Google Analytics

In order to properly monitor where your traffic is coming from, the first thing that you should do, if you haven’t already, is to set up a Google Analytics account. If you do not already have one, then don’t worry because setting one up is actually very straightforward. In fact, it only takes six simple steps that we have outlined below :

1. Go to Google Analytics and sign in using your Google account (or if you do not have a Google account then create one).

2. After signing in, click on ‘Access Google Analytics‘ and then choose ‘Sign Up‘.

3. Fill out all of the relevant information including your website name, url (domain name), industry category and time zone.

4. In the section marked ‘Data Sharing Options‘ be sure to check the options that best suit your needs.

5. Click on ‘Get Tracking ID‘ and then read/accept the Terms of Service Agreement before clicking ‘I Accept‘.

6. Take your Tracking ID and add it to your website or have your Webmaster add it for you.

Using Google Analytics

If you are not used to using Google Analytics reports, then it can look a little bit overwhelming. We totally understand that, so we want to help you to learn how to use the Analytics dashboard in order to find the information that interests you the most. Not only will we explain how to see where your website traffic is coming from, but also how to isolate individual sources.

The first step is to learn how to get your traffic report. When you log into your Google Analytics account, you will need to click on ‘Traffic Sources‘. This is located close to the bottom left hand side of the page. This will expand the Traffic section for you. The next step is to choose ‘Overview’. This is going to display all of your website traffic, and this will be split into various types of traffic:

• Search Traffic – These are visitors who come to your site via a search engine query (e.g. Google, Yahoo or Bing).

• Referral Traffic – This is traffic that comes form someone clicking a link on another website, such as the eloping couples who will click on your vendor listing here at WhereToElope.com.

• Direct Traffic – If visitors come to your website from Direct sources, it is because they came to you directly by typing in your url, or maybe clicking on a link in your newsletter.

• Campaigns – This is traffic that comes from a paid Google AdWords Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign.

The traffic source we want to look at in more detail now is Referral traffic. You can examine it in greater detail by clicking on ‘Sources’. This opens up a new set of menus that lets you look more closely at a particular traffic category. The display is similar, but will detail the sources for thee specific type of traffic. In the case of Referral traffic, you will see the different sites that have referred visitors to your site. Take a look at how many referrals you are getting from your WhereToElope.com listing.

Every single one of these referrals, clickthrus or leads is an opportunity for you to book an elopement, so they are well worth keeping track of!

If you have any questions about Google Analytics or would like to talk with us about your Referrals from WhereToElope.com then please do not hesitate to leave a comment below or get in touch with Dave via email or call.