This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome to Side Hustle School. Got a really great question for you today. Really enjoyed this question. It's so relevant for so many people. If you're gonna be selling something online, you need to understand the answer to this question.
And in this case, the caller, our listener, she sells a video tutorial series for students taking the MCAT. That would be the Medical College Admissions Test. But she's not sure where her customers are coming from. So she's got customers, but she is not exactly sure what search terms they might be typing into the search engine or however else it might be. And this information is valuable.
Indeed, it's vital. Understanding where your customers are coming from, because if you don't know, if you don't have that information, you don't know how to focus your efforts in drawing in more of them. There could be all kinds of stuff that's happening, but there's only one real source of where the customers are coming from, or perhaps there's one source where most customers are coming from. You think it's one thing, but it could end up being something different. That's why you need this information.
So how can she acquire the information? And as you begin to sell your product or service, how can you do the same? For most businesses, not all web traffic or prospects or followers are created equal. Some convert to buyers at a much better rate than others. So that's why this intelligence is so important.
Let's talk about it today. Where are my customers coming from? [Music]
Hi, this is Chelsea Myers from Winter Park, Florida, and I've been listening to the show for about two years. My side hustle is called MCAT Math, and I sell a video tutorial series for students who are struggling with math questions covered on the Medical College Admission Test, also known as the MCAT. My question is, how do I figure out where my customers are coming from?
I have a couple of partners who also offer other MCAT services, have a YouTube channel, and I guess I can be discovered through search, but I'm not sure where my site traffic is coming from, and more importantly, who is actually converting to a sale. I only make about four or five sales a month, so I don't get a lot of data from my website. I have a really good feedback from my customers, and I really wanna put more effort into marketing, but I have no idea where to direct that effort. Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
[Music]
Thank you, Chelsea. Thank you so much for asking one of those questions that is super important, but not everyone thinks about it, not everyone knows to ask it, and I really believe this is something that a lot of our listeners should pay attention to. Now, I heard you when you said you have only four to five sales a month coming from the website. However, I think first things first, you may have already done this, but for any of our other listeners, be sure to install Google Analytics tracking code on your website. All right, it's free, it's not that hard.
We will link it up in the notes for today. Google Analytics, in most cases, you'll just copy a block of code that they give you, and you either add it to every page on your site, or depending on what platform you're using, there might be a place you can add it that will make it universal, which is always nice and easy. And they'll show you how to do this with lots of tutorials, you're just cutting and pasting. And what this tracking code does is it shows you the behavior of your website visitors. You can see the landing pages, you can see what they searched for to come to your website, you can see the path that they took as they navigated throughout your website.
You can set up conversion goals, which will show you, okay, here's how a visitor became a customer. It can be really complex if you're into that kind of data analysis, but even just like a simple version, you can learn a lot. Okay, so you should totally have this installed, even if you don't know what to do with it yet, and even if your website is totally new. Because the whole point is if it's there, it's gonna be collecting this data, you can look at it a month from now, three months from now, whenever. Okay, now I know some people have privacy concerns about Google, which I do understand.
There might be some alternatives to it, it's just that the Google Analytics system is the simplest. And if you're already using Gmail or Google Docs or Google Drive or any other Google services, then they already have a lot of your data anyway. So I just find it the easiest thing to do. If you have a hosted solution like Squarespace or Wix or similar, they may also provide some analytics. So make sure you have any options for that turned on in your dashboard settings.
Okay, so that's the most important thing, make sure you're tracking in some fashion. This will give you access to a wealth of information once you begin to get traffic. Now, as for Chelsea, she's fortunate that she doesn't have a ton of website traffic, it sounds like, but she does have customers. She's got at least five customers coming through the website and maybe some other customers in addition, I'm not sure. So one thing you can also do is, you can also just simply ask your customers, ask those buyers, where did you hear about us?
And it's a simple, basic question that reveals valuable intelligence. You can do this either in the checkout process when they're placing an order. You never want to make things complicated when someone is trying to buy something, but it is a pretty basic question. So it's not unusual to ask that, or you can also ask it immediately afterwards. And so if you don't have confidence in the tracking system you're using, or if people are coming from lots of other sources, not just typing something in on Google or another search engine, but they might be coming through word of mouth or social media, et cetera, then that might be worth doing.
And then, as I alluded to, one of the things that's so important about this process is that not all traffic, not all visitors are created equal, at least in terms of their intent to purchase. So as an example, Chelsea might learn that some search terms are much more lucrative in terms of bringing in those paid customers. So what then does she do with that info? Well, this week, we were talking in the classroom episode about finding time to work on your hustle, 'cause everyone's busy. And there's so many different things that she could do, so many things that you could do, but with this information, Chelsea or anyone else, will then begin to target those search terms much more.
And I would say also abandon any efforts toward the less valuable ones, focus on where the customers are coming from. That's why that information is so vital. So definitely set up some tracking. I will also include a link to that in the Side Hustle School Weekly Recap email that goes out every Sunday. You can subscribe to that for free on the site.
I just wanna make sure that you don't miss this because it is, as I said, vital. All right, thank you again, Chelsea, for that wonderful question. Good luck with those MCAT resources. And listeners, if you've got a question of your own, guess what? Just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions.
As you can hear, we're featuring them throughout the year, along with updates from other listeners as they launch their projects. Lots of good stuff is coming in. I'm really excited about all that we are building together. So feel free to participate or just keep enjoying the series. Of course, it goes out every day.
It is also free. You can subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. My name is Chris Guillebeau and this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
