I have worked with business owners for several years. When the conversation centers around their website, we begin talking about usability and performance. I am always asked, “Do you think I should be using Google Analytics on my website?” My response is, “Do you have a checking account?”
Obviously the answer is yes.
If you have a checking account, I’m sure you keep a ledger showing all deposits and withdrawals to keep an accurate balance. You know how much money you have. If you have children in school, you recieve quarterly report cards detailing an accurate assessment of their grade marks.
Your website is one of the most important aspects of marketing your business, you need to know how it is performing
You may have GA (Google Analytics) on your website but have never viewed the reports; and if you did, you may have gotten lost in the analytics vortex. The reports can be overwhelming and confusing.
In our previous blog post, Build Community Around Your Brand, we discussed building your brand locally and keeping it simple. My suggestion is to do the same with GA. Begin with the basic reports and then expand further into more detail.
Google Cofounder Avinash Kaushik states – “There is one difference between winners and losers when it comes to web analytics. Winners, well before they think data or tool, have a well structured Digital Marketing & Measurement Model. Losers don’t.”
3 Basic Google Analytic Reports
To begin, here are the 3 basic reports I suggest to get started with:
Audience Overview Report
The Audience Overview Report tells you how many visitors have come to your website. It will distinguish how many of those were there for the first time and how many have been there before. You receive information such as, how many pages have been viewed, what localities they are from, how long they stayed on your website, and much more.
Acquisition Overview Report
The Acquisition Overview Report lets you know how the visitor came to your website, or how they have found you. This includes your direct domain name, a Google search and through social media. You can learn if another website referred you, what pages on your site people are landing on, and what social sites (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc) are sending you the most traffic.
Behavior Overview Report
The Behavior Overview Report tells you what actions visitor are taking once they are on your website. You will learn the exact pages they visited, how long the visit was, what links, if any, they followed, form submissions. Every user action is logged and can be found within this report.
10 Reasons to Use Google Analytics
To help you better understand the importance of GA, check out this infographic from Logit: Digital Exellence 10 Reasons Why You Should Choose Google Analytics.
Knowledge is power! Knowing the performance of your website gives you more power in using it for marketing purposes, which in turn drives more potential clients to your site.
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney, founder Disney
