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Data is a valuable asset in every industry, but only if you know how to harness its potential. As a business owner, you need to be able to decipher what your data really says about your business and take action on your insights to achieve your company goals. However, doing so starts with collecting the right data.

Internal data — the information that is private to your company — is an incredibly effective tool for increasing website traffic. While many businesses look to public information (such as keyword search volumes) to develop a traffic-boosting marketing plan, internal data can play a key role in differentiating your website and scaling your business.

Here’s what you need to know about internal data and how to use it to improve the right areas of your site.

Internal Data vs. External Data

Internal data includes all of the information that comes directly from your company’s systems. It’s specific to your business and can’t be accessed by anyone else. Two examples of internal data are revenue and employee satisfaction rates.

On the other hand, external data includes the public information that comes from outside your company. For example, anyone can see the number of likes you get from your social media marketing or the demographics of people who live in your city.

Both types of data are incredibly useful for scaling your business, and no successful company exclusively uses one. However, when you’re focusing on growing your website traffic and increasing your conversion rates, using internal data exclusive to your team can give you a competitive advantage.

Here are three specific ways that internal data can help you achieve your goals.

Identify and Meet Customer Needs

Focusing on customer needs is an essential part of scaling your business. As such, it also plays a role in building a more competitive website that reaches more of your target customers. 

When you know what your audience actually needs, you can greatly improve your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy and rank higher on Google, which significantly increases your website’s visibility. You’ll know what information they’re actually looking for on Google, so you can develop evergreen content that answers their questions. Plus, you’ll be able to identify and hone in on your business niche.

So how do you use internal data in this process? Rather than building customer personas based on external research and assumptions, you can look at the data you have on your current customer base to create more informed client profiles. With tools like Google Analytics, you can generate data concerning:

• Which keywords clients are searching before navigating to your website
• Which blog posts are generating the most traffic
• Which web pages are actually driving clicks and sales

With a more refined look at your unique customers, you can determine where your website and elements of your business plan are missing the mark. This way, you can make improvements that actually attract website visitors by catering to their needs.

Understand and Refine Your User Journey Map

Making your web pages more discoverable is only a part of boosting your traffic on your site. Once a potential customer enters your website, you need to be able to keep them there. You can use internal data to determine what causes visitors to leave your site, and ultimately improve the user experience based off of that.

When you increase your website visitors’ average session duration (also known as dwell time), you don’t just increase your chances of winning a lead or a sale. You can also further boost your website’s discoverability. Dwell time and bounce rates are key organic search ranking factors.

Make the Most of Your Resources

When you’re improving your website traffic, you don’t have to put in significantly more work. Internal data — including time logs from your team members — can tell you what aspects of your user journey are wasting your time. This way, you can grow your website while efficiently reaping the benefits.

For example, your time tracking tool may show you that you’re spending too much time scheduling meetings with leads after they fill out contact forms on your site. You can streamline this process by relying on tools like Calendly, which lets clients book their own meetings. This can even free up more time for you to focus on improving your site.

Develop a High-Traffic Website

Increasing website traffic is critical for any scaling business. However, external data (like keyword search volumes) isn’t the only information you can use to get more eyes on your site. You can also use the internal data you have on customers to understand their needs and your niche, as well as improve the user journey on your website.