Understanding the Basics of Google Analytics
One of the most influential tools you can use to really understand how well your website is doing is Google Analytics, which analyses different types of metrics, from visits and page views, to conversions and geographic location of visitors, allowing you to determine what is and isn’t working for your business, and the steps you need to take to improve your website.
The most important function of these is the metric that measures your Key Performance Indicators (or KPIs), and yes, you can choose what metrics are being indicated.
Furthermore, there are various kinds of reports that you can personalize and add to your dashboard, making it easier for you to access, and understand, them.
The following are a list of reports that you can choose to help monitor the success of your website:
- Traffic (or visitor) reports: this includes the number of visitors your website has, what pages they are interested in, and where they are coming from, both geographically and via the Internet. The advantage of this metric is that it allows you to better understand Internet users who are interested in your products, business or website. For example, while it may not seem ground-breaking, understanding what other websites your traffic users can lead to successful linking, SEO tips and advertising placement in the future
- Goal conversion: to make sure that you are on track with the goals that you’ve set out to achieve when you created your website (and having goals is one of the most important qualities of a successful site), you can set up a section in Google Analytics that lets you know daily, weekly and monthly about where your website stands. These can include anything from number of visitors, to time spent on website, to conversions, depending on what you hope to achieve from your website
- Social conversions: this report focuses specifically on conversions that occur via social media. With the rise of sites such as Facebook and Twitter, it is important as a business to understand the effects their popularity can have on your own website. If you are considering creating an account on a social networking site that links to your business’ website, this is a tool that could be vital to understanding your online visitors. You can choose the goals which you decide are most important to your business, and Google Analytics can then review how successful certain social sites are for your business
These are just a few of the comprehensive number of tools that are available to you, and your business, through Google Analytics. While each statistic by themselves may seem inconsequential, combined they give you the opportunity to understand both your visitors, and therefore potential customers, as well as the different aspects of the Internet and how they can affect your website, for good or bad.
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