Finding success with Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free service provided by Google to track information on visitors to websites with the Google Analytics tracking code installed. We deal with many customers that have Google Analytics installed on their websites and never go past the first page of tracking information. They feel confident that Google is tracking every metric possible for their site but never actually look at the details to understand what the numbers mean.
Our Guide to success with Google Analytics
We have created this short guide to explain some of the key features within the Google Analytics interface and focus on a few key metrics to keep an eye on when reviewing your own web site stats for success with Google Analytics.
- Audience - This area is the most traditional analytics data, containing information on the visitor's location, browsing device, and basic behavior. Key areas to view here are Behaviour / Engagement as this tells you how long a visitor stays on your site on average, if all visitors are within the 0-10 second range then your site is not engaging enough to new visitors. Also, Visitor Flow is a great way to identify where visitors go within the site and how many levels they have drilled down into, if your site has too many levels then a visitor may lose interest before getting to your key content.
- Advertising - If you use paid Google Adwords advertising with your site this area can show you how your ads are performing. Once your Adwords and Analytics accounts are linked you can view data on the ads you are running for your site. Keywords and Keyword Positions are good metrics here, allowing you to see which keywords your ads are performing under and the positions the ads are appearing within those results.
- Traffic Sources - Here is where the most useful data on your website is stored. Sources show where your visitors are coming from, email marketing, search engines and social media links. The Search Engine Optimisation shows the actual keywords that the visitor searched for in the search engine to get to your site!
- Content - The Content section allows you to view detailed stats on individual pages on your site, most popular, average time on page and bounce rate. As search engines index all pages of your site this area is essential to identify where a visitor lands on your site and how long each page keeps their attention.
- Conversions - This area allows you the account holder to define goals that the Google Analytics system will then track such as visiting a page, purchasing a product and submitting a web form. The conversion system does require some technical knowledge as the conversion code must be entered into the page/product/form that is to be tracked. But once setup Conversions give the system the flexibility to track any goal you wish to measure.
Using all of the above areas of Google Analytics can give you a much better understanding of your current audience including their most popular pages, how long they stay on each page and even the path they take through your site and the page that they exit from. The next time you are looking at your Google Analytics home page take some time to look deeper into the information that is on offer, the true power of Google Analytics is the amount of data that is available, if you do not use that data then you may be missing one of the best free website tools available on the web today.
Our business support package contains Google Analytics as standard.
Two Plus Two is a web design company with offices in High Wycombe, we specialise in web design and search engine optimisation. We offer a free consultation call on web design and search engine optimisation for any new project you may require, simply call us today on 01494 730000.
