The 411 on Google Analytics

If you missed our recent Google Analytics class, you might still be confused not only about what Google Analytics is, but what it can do for your business. Analytics help you measure your traffic on your website. Believe it or not, many websites are still without any sort of analytics on their site. This means they have no way of tracking who is visiting their site, what pages they are clicking on, and how long they’re staying on the page. Similarly, some people have Google Analytics installed on their website, but they never look at the data.

If you have a blog or a static website, then you need Google Analytics. The data you receive is helpful for both personal and business reasons. The data will provide you information including:

• How much traffic visits my site?
• Where are my website visitors located?
• What websites are sending visitors to my site?
• What marketing tactic brings the most traffic to my site?
• Which pages on my site are the most visited?
• What is my conversion rate?
• Should my site be mobile-friendly?
• How can my site’s speed be improved?

These are some basic questions Google Analytics can answer for you, but there’s a lot more you can learn once you really dig in.

You can create your Google Analytics account using your primary Google account. Make sure you use an account you plan on keeping forever, and that only you have access to. It’s important to make sure you follow this step closely. If you let someone else set up analytics for you, such as a web designer, and you quit working with them, they can take the data with them. You can grant access to others, but you want to make sure you own the account. Once you set up your account and property, you will have to install a tracking code to every page on your website that you want to track.

Google Analytics will allow you to set up specific goals that you’d like tracked on your website. For instance, you may want to track how many conversions you have. You can create up to 20 goals, so you’ll want to choose your goals wisely. Site Search will also give you valuable data, as it will show you what people are searching for on your pages.

Each time you log in to Google Analytics, you’ll have access to a variety of reports that will help you learn more about your website traffic. If you need assistance with Google Analytics, we are always happy to help!