With so many different technologies for business out there, it is hard to keep up with everything. It’s hard to decipher what different products and services do and which ones work best for your business. There are a few different services out there that are essential for any type of business, and today we will be touching on one of our favorites, Google Analytics. Google Analytics is an awesome service that, in a nutshell, tracks users on your website. Now it doesn’t track in a creepy sort of way, but rather in a very vague, anonymous way. We will be touching upon the main features of Google Analytics and letting you know how you can begin analyzing your website data with Google today!
Total Visitors – Let’s begin with the most basic feature. When you log into Google Analytics, you immediately see a line graph. This graph shows how many visitors you have had on your site. You can track visitors by month, week, day, hour, or choose a custom range. This is a great way to get an idea of how many people are seeing your site and how your traffic goes up or down over time.
Bounce Rate – Knowing your bounce rate is also very important. Bounce rate simply means how many people visit your site and then leave without exploring it further. You can also look at the bounce rates of each specific page. So, if a certain page has a very high bounce rate, it may be a sign that there is either a developmental or visual issue with that page.
Average Session – Knowing your average session means knowing the average amount of time users spend on your website. This is usually a good indication of whether or not you are able to engage your audience. If your average session on your blog is only 20 seconds, it could mean that your content is not catching the interest of your potential audience. If, however, your average session is five to ten minutes, odds are users are reading one to two articles.
Location – You can also track site views based on the location of each visit. The location services range from as broad as what country they were in to as narrow as to what city they were in. This is a great way to determine where your online marketing dollars would be best spent and where you should focus your efforts.
Browser – Google Analytics will also allow you to not only see what browsers users are using but also if they are mobile users or desktop users. This is great because you can optimize your site and content based on the majority of your users.
New vs. Returning – This is an awesome feature that breaks down your new and returning traffic so that you can see how many people return to your site versus how much of your traffic is new. This is important information because if you are an online retailer who is seeing very little return traffic, it may be a sign that your business isn’t sustainable long-term and you need to make a change.
Users Flow – Being able to see your flow of traffic is valuable in many ways. For one, you can see what pages users start off on, and from there how many continue to another page and how many drop-off. These numbers are valuable when trying to decide where to lead advertising traffic.
If you would like to get started with Google Analytics, there are a couple things you’ll need to do to get started. For one, you will need to sign up for an account by visiting analytics.google.com. Google makes account creation and set up very easy so you should have no problem getting started. Secondly, you will need to enter the tracking code into your website code. If you are not capable of this, you will need to find a web developer who can help you get your code implemented. After this, you are ready to start tracking and analyzing!
We hope this article has been helpful, and if there is anything we can help you with, please let us know!
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