Five Minute Friday: Identifying Traffic Patterns

Foreign.

Business can be a lonely game. But it doesn't have to be. Welcome to Boutique Chat where we explore community over competition and how to scale your company with the balance and the happiness that we all seek.

We'll hear from product based businesses of.

All types, retailers, e commerce and wholesale brands, along with industry experts shaping the future of our industry. I'm your host Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub and I can't wait to chat.

You guys have been troopers.

You've been here all season long, all year long, even through the ups and the downs of the great seasons and the J months. And now you're gearing up for the busiest time of year. And so here's what I wanna do. We are going on a short mid season break. We are gonna take a couple of weeks off from the podcast to give you some time to focus and get re energized in your business plan. Plan out what's to come, catch up on episodes you missed and then we are gonna be back with a fresh take on this season's episodes on September 17th. So remember the weeks of September 3rd and 10th. We are taking a little mid season break and we'll see you back here September 17th. So go back.

Be sure to leave us a rating.

And review you guys.

That helps us so much to know.

What you love about this show. It helps new people discover this show and I just love to hear from you and see your smiling faces. So please subscribe to the podcast wherever you list, leave a rating, leave a review and if you ever have feedback or questions and you're like hey Ashley, please cover this topic. Send me a message on Instagram. It's AJ Alderson, my personal gram. I will personally answer your message or at the Boutique Hub on Instagram, myself and Shannon Gordon on our team, we'll also take your feedback and answer your messages. So that all to say, I want.

To hear from you, I want your.

Input, I want your ideas. But I want you to feel caught up on all the episodes that you may have missed this season. And I'll see you back here on September 17th.

Hey guys, it's you and me and it's five minute Friday and I want to talk whether you're an online business or brick and mortar about identifying traffic patterns in your business. This is one of the most important things you can do as a CEO and a leader of your business and really making a plan and analyzing what's working and what's not so that then you can identify what changes should I make that could possibly Improve the traffic patterns in my business. So I want to give you just a couple of quick tips and help you understand where would I find this information so I can identify what's working. So let's talk first if you're an online business. Now I know it seems like Kevin Costner in the field of dreams, if I build it, they will come. It seems like it should be enough for me just to put the website out there and people will find it and want to buy off of it, right?

Wrong.

Doesn't work like that.

Having a website is a day to.

Day operation of you coming in to the storefront just like you would a physical storefront and analyzing what's working and what's not. What patterns are people taking through my website, what are they touching but not buying? What are they buying, what's merchandise together and how can I make it all even better? The online store has to have that type of attention and so one of the most important things you can do is identify the traffic patterns of your online store using Google Analytics. So there's a million trainings and inside the hub and of course boutique hub Black, which is our highest and most advanced level of the boutique hub, specifically dealing with traffic, understanding how to use Google Analytics. But if you're in there, a couple things you really need to make sure in your GA4 that you're analyzing. So first is just what is my unique visitors during this period of time? What's standard for my traffic? How many visitors do I get per week, per month, per quarter, per year? Of those unique visitors, what is my average dwell time? The higher my dwell time can go means that they're finding things they like. They're clicking around, they're discovering, they're curious. I'm leading them to new places throughout my site. If my dwell time's really low, people are immediately coming to the homepage and they're bouncing saying oh, this store isn't for me. I don't know that I like it or trust it or identify with it. I don't think the products are really going to be for me there is a miss there. So understanding that dwell time also leads into understanding that bounce rate. If there's a high bounce rate and people are leaving, they're not resonating. So how can we adjust that bounce rate to get the dwell time up over time and the bounce rate down over time? Now you can also explore of course the traffic patterns and top pages on your site. Where are people clicking most? Where are people coming into the first time session the most where are people exiting the most?

Right.

If you have a huge drop off rate on certain pages, I would really evaluate on those pages what's the call to action and what's the secondary call to action if the first one isn't for them? For example, on a product page, if this product isn't for me, then I can either X out and close the site or see recommended or customers also viewed or you might also like recommended products down below. There has to be a first and a second action people can take on your site. So that's important for online businesses. For storefront businesses, I hope that you have a map of your storefront and the layout where all your tables are, where all the nesting is, where all the little rounders are in your store. And every couple of weeks you just take note of what is the path people are taking and you just watch people as they go around to identify what's the pattern. Do people go right or left first? Is it a shotgun store? And they go in and they go out, right? Like they bounce to the back and they bounce right back out. Do I need to slow them down and create more curiosity? Are there hot spots where everyone is stopping and touching and feeling and that's where people are buying? Are there dead zones where there's just no traffic, nobody's going to that area. Are there theft areas where you know, this is where people are stealing things? So then once you have identified the pattern then you can start to adjust and say, okay, I need to make some changes here. I need to look at eye level as bi level or how do I increase curiosity and discovery to get people to stop and to touch and to feel and to dig through things? How can I create? You know, the majority of people are right handed, right? So in a lot of stores people will come in and go to the right. Do I have the diamonds and the newest best collections and things up front and then the dirt to go discover in the back, right. A lot of people are sales shoppers, so let them discover the diamonds first and grab some new arrivals. Then they can dig in the back, right. What do I have near the dressing rooms? If I have dressing rooms that I can quickly suggest and make an add on or an upsell and then what do I have by the cash wrap that I quickly can suggest and make an add on or an upsell? So what's the traffic pattern? What's the traffic count? And once you have that baseline then you can start to identify week to week, what changes can I make to really get people to stay longer in the store to purchase more units per transaction, to increase that average order value and and to bring back repeat customers. And the same goes for your storefront window and the homepage of your website. What merchandising is really going to start to impact traffic patterns for you. So you got to start with the baseline, get to know the path, get to know the numbers and the metrics and the Google Analytics before we can do all the rest of the fun stuff and re merchandise the store. I hope this tip was helpful for you guys today. We cover a lot of this Inside of Retail bootcamp and of course we have a module on it inside of membership at the Boutique Hub as well.

So let me know today if you.

Have any questions over at AJ Alderson.

Or at the Boutique Hub.

I'd love to help you guys out. Thanks for listening to five Minute Friday. I'll see you guys soon. Thanks for listening guys.

I hope you took away all kinds of nuggets and new ideas from this week's episode. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a rating and review. We love to hear your feedback and give you a chance to be featured on the show each and every week. For more information on our spirit of community over competition and and to access guest downloads and bonuses and all the resources we talked about on the show, head on over to the boutiquehub.com and join the community. We'll see you next week.