Don’t know what Google Analytics is? We got you!
In just a sentence, Google Analytics is a tool which all types of business can use to measure the analytics of their websites by finding out how users find and use it. AND, the best thing about it is that it is free!
Here’s how it works
Google Analytics tracks data by a unique tracking code from Javascript or another coding language that you install on every page of your website to run in viewers’ browser when they visit such pages.
Each time a visitor visits the site, this code tracks information about their visit and sets a cookie on their computer which provides anonymous information to create user i.d.s.
UTM parameters, on the other hand, are tags added to the end of your URL, which Campaign URL Builder can help you construct, to provide Google Analytics with more information about your links like what social channel is driving the most revenue.
For example → www.example.com/utm_source=buffer
What Google Analytics consists of
The building blocks of Google Analytics reports are dimensions and metrics. The former are the sources you are evaluating such as pages, social media channels, cities and more. The latter is the quantitative measurements of such dimensions.
As an example, when checking how many people are accessing your social media channels; the dimensions would be the social media channels like Facebook and the metrics would be the actual number of people accessing Facebook.
If you think that this is still too much for you to handle, don’t worry! VEONIO can offer you the service of doing all this work for you. However, if you think it’s all right, then let’s continue.
Now that you know how Google Analytics works, here are fifteen ways it can help you grow your business.
1. Every area starts with an overview of the ongoing analytics.
This serves as a summary of what is going on your site in terms of acquisition, behaviour and conversion data for your top traffic sources by channel. The channels include referrals (backlinks), direct search, organic search, paid search and social media channels.
Google Analytics organizes data into the Acquisition, Behaviour and Conversions.
2. You get to see the metrics of mobile traffic behaviour
This way you can spot the difference between the traffic generated on mobiles and the traffic generated on the web. This is affected mostly by geography and demographics. The results can help you determine what type of data and in what format you want to create for your website.
3. The Acquisition area
It specifically refers to how you get all sort of traffic. Again, you can use the overview of such area as it includes top information like the number of sessions acquired, bounce rates of such visitors and their conversions.
By using other types of views in this area, on the other hand, you can see the other types of traffic like which search engine is driving the most organic traffic. One can simply press on Source/Medium from the side list underneath Acquisition and easily find out.
4. Google Analytics can integrate with other tools like Ads accounts.
This way you can track how your ad campaigns are performing in terms of bringing traffic to the website.
One can also integrate with the Search Console to see how the landing pages are performing in different areas like keywords and click-through rates.
5. Learn more about your audience through the Audience section!
This section helps you find out who your visitors are, what they want, what their likes and dislikes are and their demographics. This way you can target them and satisfy more their want and needs.
6. The Behaviour area
It allows you to see the behaviour of the viewers, the paths they’re taking and what they’re actually doing on the website.
Such content is split into many areas which include: Pageviews; Unique Pageviews; Average Time on Page, Bounce Rate; and Percent Exit.
Let me explain:
- Pageviews is the total number of pages viewed.
- Unique pageviews are the number of people who have viewed a new page during at least one visit.
- Average time on page is the average amount of time that users spend viewing a page.
- The bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits which last for a very short time, even seconds.
- Finally, Percent Exit is the percentage of users who exit from a particular page or a set of pages.
7. The Behaviour Flow view
It is the same as the behaviour section, in fact, it is part of it, but as a difference, it consists of diagrams or visuals which show the activity of clients. This can help you notice on which pages visitors decide to exit the website and what you can do to eliminate this problem or improve such page.
8. Seeing how your visitors interact with the pages of your site
This is broken down into different reports which include: All Pages, Content Drill Down, Landing Pages and Exit Pages. The All pages feature shows you the top pages ranked according to the traffic numbers from highest to lowest.
The Content Drill Down report can be used for areas of the site with content like blogs and news. One can ‘drill-down’ into the folders to see individual performance of such content.
The Landing Pages report gives you the benefit of seeing the pages visitors use to enter your site.
On the other hand, Exit Pages are where people are exiting your site. IT IS IMPORTANT that you check from which pages are people exiting the site so that you can improve them.
9. Site Speed tracking
Site Speed is an aspect a website should take good care of. No one likes to use a slow site which takes ages to load a page. Google Analytics has this section just for such purposes. It shows you the average load time of all pages throughout the website through the overview tab.
Details provided include the average page load time, average redirection time, average domain lookup time, average server connection time, average server response time and average page download time.
The best thing about this is the Speed Suggestion report (which is totally self-explanatory) which google offers as advice for you on how to optimize specific pages and detailed information for each page.
10. You find out how people are using the Search Function of your site
By the Site Search facility you will be able to see what terms are used for search, the overall metrics of people who use the search box, the keywords they use and the page they actually land on.
11. You understand how viewers treat ‘Events’
If your website contains certain links, videos, audio, available downloads and more, you can track how these things are being treated by viewers, yet, this method requires a special tracking code if you don’t use a WordPress plugin.
12. You can run experiments to see if your new ideas will be successful or not
In the experiments section underneath behaviour, Google Analytics gives you the chance to run A/B testings so that you can test the old idea with the new one and see which one is the most successful to be implemented.
13. You can see how eventually people get to convert
Through the conversions section, you can see the ‘goals’ (total number of conversions). Such goals have to be set :
- Properly
- Specifically
- Accurately
You can also see the Goal URLs report, which shows the URLs where people convert.
The Reverse Goal Path works similarly, but the difference is that this setting shows you the previous steps for goal completion.
Through the Funnel Visualizations, you get to see everything; from conversion paths to drop-offs, to finding complications in the checkout processes or broken cart pages, etc.
14. The eCommerce section- which is MORE specifically aimed for online shopping sites
This gives you all the details of the purchases made on a daily basis.
In the overview, you have a summary of the eCommerce conversion rate, average order value, unique purchases and quantity of products sold.
The Products Performance report is more specific. It shows you how individual products are doing. This is good for determining which products are bestsellers, the trends and preferred prices. Such report also lists the revenue you make daily.
Moreover, the transactions report includes everything starting from revenue, tax, shipping, and quantity of items purchased for every transaction made during the timeframe you’re measuring.
Finally, the Time to Purchase section shows you the amount of time it takes every visitor to purchase an item after arriving on your site. You can also check for complications.
15. Finding out what makes visitors want to convert
The Multi-Channel Funnels section gives you a complete view of a customer’s journey on your site. This also includes things which lead to such conversions like interest in reading blog posts, downloading a guide or signing up for a newsletter.
The overview, again, shows you a summary of each marketing channel that helps drive conversions to your site.
Some channels might influence conversion indirectly and that is what the Assisted Conversions section is for.
So let’s say that this is a starter pack you’ll need to start using Google Analytics for your business. As a piece of light advice from us– do open the tool yourself and start analysing it out yourself without holding back. If you still think you don’t know what you’re doing just leave it to us and we’ll help you out.