Disclosure: We are a professional review site that receives compensation from the companies whose products we review. We test each product thoroughly and give high marks to only the very best. We are independently owned and the opinions expressed here are our own.
Do you know about the free market research available from Google Analytics? Yes, free! 95% of businesses fall into one of two categories:
- They think that analytics is technical and just for the tech geeks.
- They installed analytics with all good intentions, and never bothered to look at the reports.
If that is you, then you are missing out on some powerful information about the online performance of your website and/ your business.
Why Google Analytics
A lot of businesses use Google Analytics to track their website performance, but sometimes I get the question Why Google? Well, it’s pretty straightforward, so I’ll be frank: Google provides the best analytics functionality in the market with the best user interface in the market at no cost.
Translation: It’s Good, It’s Easy to Use, and It’s Free.
In all seriousness, it is in Google’s best interest for users to understand what keywords drive traffic to their website (so you’ll buy more advertising for those keywords, perhaps) and for users to make sure their sites are easy to navigate (so the search engines can index them more easily), so it isn’t surprising that they deliver a free tool like this. Google is also know for their popular mail and spreadsheet tools, so the question really isn’t why Google Analytics, it’s why not Google Analytics.
What Analytics Can Teach You
You installed analytics, and it’s been running silently and swiftly behind your website, gathering all sorts of data. What can you do with that? Here’s a sampling of the data you’ll find in Google Analytics reports:
- Visitors Reports: what kind of customers are you attracting with your online marketing efforts. Where do they live, what kind of computer equipment are they using, how long are they visiting your website, what time are the visiting.
- Traffic Sources Reports: where do your visitors come from? Is that banner ad sending traffic, or is Linked in sending loads of traffic and Twitter just a dribble?
- Content Reports: What are your hot articles and content? What is a dud? What content do people seem to find and immediately turn away?
- Goals Reports: What are your conversion rate goals? Are you achieving them?
Those are the main types of reports in Google analytics, but you can of course drill down into loads and loads of detail.
Where To Start
I will not lie: you can definitely get in over your head in Google Analytics, especially if you aren’t a numbers person. Fret not, let me give you a tip on where to start: what are your website goals? Yes, start with the business goals first. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Do you have a marketing campaign (Adwords, banner ad, directory advertisement) you are expecting to deliver XXX numbers of leads?
- Do you have a sales page you are hoping to have a XYZ% conversion?
- Do you need ABC number of pageviews in order to increase your advertising rates?
Just some ideas. But sketch out what you need your website to do, then have a look at Google and see how you’re doing against those things. The secret: you can’t improve if you don’t measure.
Photo by joreal314
About andrewghayes
the drag-and-drop interface to create reports with the metrics and dimensions is amazing.. good post