How my addiction is helping my business.

August 31, 2010

I’m addicted. It’s bad. I can’t stop myself. At first it was just fun. But then I was doing it three or four times a day. Sometimes first thing in the morning! But the day I started spending less time with my family so I could do it, I knew I had a problem. My name is Hossein Noshirvani and I am…addicted to Google Analytics.

So what is Google Analytics (you know aside from the most awesomest thing in the world)? It is a free tool provided by Google that allows me to quantify and understand everything associated with our website. (Again, this is free! You should use it!) How many hits we had, how many were new visitors, which pages people visited most frequently, etc. The list goes on and on and on! And I have read, examined, and dissected every report. All in the hopes of being able to better understand what’s important to our customers and what we do! And I can tell you, I have. Easy to use, actionable reporting is incredible. (And FYI, our software features reporting too! Just not web analytics.)

Within this deep dark world is a section on keywords. In essence, which words do people use to describe what they are searching for, and do we fit that bill? There is an important correlation between what they search for on Google and whether our site is part of the results. And quite frankly it’s fascinating. But it’s causing me to have a series of existential moments. I thought I knew who I was until I started to realize that I have no idea!

Motionsoft has always been a software company. We excel at it. We pride ourselves on having the best club management software in the industry. Our website was plastered with the words, we were proud of who we were, and what we did. But it turns out, there are 50 different ways to search for “club management software.” Like “health club management software”, “gym management software” and “gym membership software”, “fitness club management software”, “fitness management software”, and “health club software”. No doubt we are all those things, and when people typed it, they always found us. But the way you ask for it tells me a lot about who YOU are and what YOUR business needs to do.

But then it starts to get interesting. People start searching for much more specific items. Things like “web based gym management”, “health club billing”, “eft billing”, “gym billing software” or “gym billing services”. In a similar vein a lot of you are looking for “check-in-software” (and “checkin software”, and “check-in software”). As a side note we had someone find us who was looking for “checkin checkout software”. (And for the record we do allow your members to leave after their workouts so check-out is applicable). No question about it, we are web based, we do billing and we can help you check-in (and checkout) members at the front desk. So this makes sense to me.

Then there are the people who combine items. Like “health club billing software”, “club membership billing”, “club check-in software”, and “gym scheduling management software.” Motionsoft does lots of these things, you guys are looking for things, so this makes sense too.

And don’t forget about the guys looking for free stuff. “Free club membership & facility management software”, “free online club management”, and “free gym membership software.” We like to think we have the right solution at the right price, but it ain’t free!

But here is why it can be really funny? We get odd search terms that led people to our site like “preteen elite”, “tweeners”, and “greg justice corporate office.” Greg, I don’t know you but someone is obviously looking for you and for some reason they think we are hanging out together!

It used to be that by being first in the Yellow Pages, you could increase your business (AAA Plumbers, AAA Mortgage, and AAA Dog Walker”) Today its all about search and search results and keywords. And whether its online or in the real world, if you want people who are looking for gyms to find you, make sure you know what they are looking for.

And FYI, my favorite search term that led someone to our site has to be “Hossein Noshirvani divorce”. I have to ask myself does Google know something I don’t know? Or did my wife know, with my new addiction, it was the only way to get my attention?