The underutilization of key insights into businesses.....

I've been having a lot of conversations with a lot of different people in a lot of different fields and categories over the past several months.

But there has been a common thread between a lot of these conversations. And that is the lack of understanding or usage of analytics. Simple, free Google Analytics.

It's amazing what you can learn with Google Analytics, and how quickly you can use these insights to inform decisions and help focus and prioritize resources in the right places. At a basic level, here are some starting points in analytics insights 101:

- Set benchmarks. So what if you haven't been using it. There's no time to start like the present, and it's easy to implement (provided your website developer is willing and able). At a minimum, implementing it now will provide insight and benchmarks for future activity.

- Watch what people are doing. How are they navigating through your site? As important, how are they NOT navigating through your site? Are they missing a key piece of information you want them to find?

- Track the impact of anything and everything you do. It's amazing. And wonderfully addicting. Send out an e-blast? Watch what happens - was there a lift in site traffic? More importantly, did these people do what you wanted them to do (and guess what - opening the email and clicking on it are only a small piece of the email ROI)?

- Set goals to track specific actions - find a location, contact us, sign up for newsletters, buy a product, anything you deem as important to your business should be tracked as a conversion.

Here are just a couple of the basic, resources that will be good for beginners, if you're interested in tackling this yourself. Of course you could hire the services of a consultant that would help you get started as well if you're struggling to find the time to commit to it.

Google Analytics Help

Official Google Analytics Blog

If those are too basic for you and and you want more, below is the link to Avinash Kaushik's blog. He is one of the smartest analytics minds I've come across. I had the pleasure of hearing him speak at a conference several years ago, and I had a total geeked out smile on my face the whole time.

Occam's Razor

There is an abundance of information out there. About anything and everything, quite frankly, but about this, too. It can be overwhelming and hard to know where to start.

And yes. I have Google Analytics on my modest website. And on this blog. So I'm watching you watching me. Just putting it out there.......