Follow Me @ Smart $ Guides.

Follow me @ Smart $ Guides.

Why Use Google Analytics?

When it comes to running an online business, it is important that you have visibility into the performance of your site, particularly how your customers interact with your site. Luckily, there is a free tool out there called Google Analytics that will help you do this. Below is the purpose of Google Analytics, as well as some of the key features and capabilities.

Purpose of Google Analytics:

Understand Your Audience

Sell and Convert

Make Business Decisions

Understanding Your Audience:

Know Your Audience

Audience Data and Reporting - This feature allows you to dissect your audience: the kinds of people they are, where they come from, how they find your content, and how loyal and engaged they are.

Advanced Segments - This feature allows you to isolate and analyze subsets of your traffic, like organic traffic or visits that led to transactions.

Filters - This feature allows you to limit and modify the traffic data that appears in any given report view (Ex: You can exclude traffic from certain domains).

Trace the Customer Path

Traffic Sources - This feature allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of your referring sites, direct traffic, social media platforms, organic (unpaid) search keywords, and custom campaigns.

Map Overlay - This feature allows you to see your visitor stats broken down by continent, country and city, which will help you understand the real origins of your traffic and find the best places to invest for new opportunities.

See What Your Audience Is Doing

Behavior Reporting - This feature allows you to see new vs. returning visitors, how frequent visitors come to your site, how long visitors are staying on your site, etc.

Flow Visualization - This feature lets you see and analyze the path a visitor takes on your site. See where they came from, the pages they moved through, and where they exited your site.

In-Page Analytics - This feature allows to see how users really interact with your pages (Ex: see where are users clicking the most on your homepage).

Sell and Convert

Reach Your Performance Goals

Ecommerce Reporting - This feature allows you too see the performance of your products. Trace transactions right down to specific keywords, understand shopper behaviors, and adjust your shopping cart to build loyalty and improve sales.

Goals - This feature allows you to measure your sales, downloads, email signups, conversions, or define your own business goals.

Reach Peak Capacity

Real-Time Reporting - This feature allows you to see how many people are on your site right now, where they came from, and what they’re viewing.

Alerts and Intelligence Reports - This feature will call attention to any abnormal behavior happening on your site (Ex: A huge spike in traffic coming from a particular city or traffic source).

Site Search - When visitors can’t find what they want on your site, they search. This feature allows you to see what your visitors are really looking for, spot missed opportunities, and speed up time to conversion.

Site-Speed Analysis - This feature shows you load times across your site, so you can fix slow pages and make your visitors happier.

Make Business Decisions

Based on the information in Google Analytics, you will be able to make educated decisions regarding the following:

Product success and determination

How to better target and sell to your customers

Marketing and advertising strategies

Improved website design

10 Traits of Mentally Strong People

1. They are able to stay calm, and maintain self-control.

2. They have clear boundaries between themselves and other people.

3. They respect their own and others’ boundaries.

4. They don’t become defensive, or feel completely crushed, when someone is critical of them or their work.

5. Where appropriate … they are able to take their fair share of the blame, and are quick to apologize when they are in the wrong.

6. They are flexible, and willing to adapt or change.

7. They know their limitations, and are happy to be helped.

8. They forgive themselves willingly – and then move on with life.

9. They don’t bear grudges, or play games with people’s feelings.

10. They are responsible, persistent, and are people of their word.

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birdnhand20

7 years ago

Follow me @ Smart $ Guides.

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birdnhand20

7 years ago

Follow me @ Smart $ Guides.

Okay I understand artists charging more than mass producers for items. But your prices are a little high. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

I’ve said this a hundred times. Other artists have said this. People who aren’t even artists but care about others being able to support themselves from their work have said this. This is my job where I make my full time living. My prices are the way they are for a reason. And even if it weren’t my full time job I am performing a specialized skill producing luxury goods that takes time, money, and years to perfect. I deserve to be compensated for that work even if the money doesn’t go to basic survival necessities.

My products may be out of your price range, which is okay. That just means you aren’t my target market. But that doesn’t mean they are overpriced. And that doesn’t make it okay to walk around telling others what they should charge. There are a hundred resources on why artists price the way they do out there, please read the following and take some time to educate yourself:

- This is a “simple” forumla for pricing. It does not include any specifics and simply includes “expenses” as a lump category.

- A more in depth guide to pricing.

- Here is a post from Magweno which does a good job of summing up all the “hidden” costs in crafting. It also includes a discussion on whether the perceived value of art should be taken into consideration. It doesn’t even take into account sales, self employment, or income taxes. 15% of my income alone goes to self employment tax. 15-30% (depending on how much I made that year) will go to income tax.

- If you want to spend some money to learn, there is an entire book on ethical pricing.

- Another blog post from Mill Girl who writes further on what goes into pricing, arts and crafts as a luxury item, what you support when you purchase handmade, and who/what you harm when you devalue handmade.

- A tumblr post which highlights the pitfalls of people who undervalue art and their negative impact on the entire art community. This includes both artists undervaluing themselves and clients undervaluing artists.

- Here’s an article on pricing as a freelancer and industry standards. For the record I consider myself under the category “Someone with a few years of experience and a good portfolio: $50 - $85+/hr.” I can promise I am charging nowhere near $50 an hour, and close to $25 since I supplement my income with “passive income” from pattern sales.

And that is just a few of the resources out there available. I sincerely hope you will read them and stop spreading negative attitudes on pricing.

7K notes View Post

birdnhand20

7 years ago

Follow me @ Smart $ Guides.