{"id":913,"date":"2010-05-29T09:03:08","date_gmt":"2010-05-29T15:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.evolutionarydesigns.net\/blog\/?p=913"},"modified":"2010-06-03T07:13:23","modified_gmt":"2010-06-03T13:13:23","slug":"free-market-research-google-analytics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.evolutionarydesigns.net\/blog\/2010\/05\/29\/free-market-research-google-analytics\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Market Research with Google Analytics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Do you know about the free market research available from <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Google Analytics\" rel=\"homepage\" href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/analytics\">Google Analytics<\/a>? \u00a0Yes, free! \u00a095% of businesses fall into one of two categories:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They think that analytics is technical and just for the tech geeks.<\/li>\n<li>They installed analytics with all good intentions, and never bothered to look at the reports.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2804\/4432547614_68930bc76f.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If that is you, then you are missing out on some powerful information about the online performance of your website and\/ your business.<\/p>\n<h2>Why Google Analytics<\/h2>\n<p>A lot of businesses use Google Analytics to track their website performance, but sometimes I get the question <em>Why <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Google\" rel=\"homepage\" href=\"http:\/\/google.com\">Google<\/a><\/em>? \u00a0Well, it&#8217;s pretty straightforward, so I&#8217;ll be frank: \u00a0Google provides the best analytics functionality in the market with the best user interface in the market at no cost.<\/p>\n<p>Translation: \u00a0It&#8217;s Good, It&#8217;s Easy to Use, and It&#8217;s Free.<\/p>\n<p>In all seriousness, it is in Google&#8217;s best interest for users to understand what keywords drive traffic to their website (so you&#8217;ll buy more advertising for those keywords, perhaps) and for users to make sure their sites are easy to navigate (so the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Web search engine\" rel=\"wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Web_search_engine\">search engines<\/a> can index them more easily), so it isn&#8217;t surprising that they deliver a free tool like this. \u00a0Google is also know for their popular mail and spreadsheet tools, so the question really isn&#8217;t why Google Analytics, it&#8217;s why <em>not<\/em> Google Analytics.<\/p>\n<h2>What Analytics Can Teach You<\/h2>\n<p>You installed analytics, and it&#8217;s been running silently and swiftly behind your website, gathering all sorts of data. \u00a0What can you do with that? \u00a0 Here&#8217;s a sampling of the data you&#8217;ll find in Google Analytics reports:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Visitors Reports<\/strong>: \u00a0what kind of customers are you attracting with your online <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Marketing\" rel=\"wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marketing\">marketing<\/a> efforts. \u00a0Where do they live, what kind of computer equipment are they using, how long are they visiting your website, what time are the visiting.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Traffic Sources Reports<\/strong>: \u00a0where do your visitors come from? \u00a0Is that banner ad sending traffic, or is Linked in sending loads of traffic and Twitter just a dribble?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Content Reports<\/strong>: What are your hot articles and content? \u00a0What is a dud? \u00a0What content do people seem to find and immediately turn away?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Goals Reports<\/strong>: \u00a0What are your <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Conversion rate\" rel=\"wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Conversion_rate\">conversion rate<\/a> goals? \u00a0Are you achieving them?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Those are the main types of reports in Google analytics, but you can of course drill down into loads and loads of detail.<\/p>\n<h2>Where To Start<\/h2>\n<p>I will not lie: \u00a0you can definitely get in over your head in Google Analytics, especially if you aren&#8217;t a numbers person. Fret not, let me give you a tip on where to start: \u00a0<strong>what are your website goals?<\/strong> Yes, start with the business goals first. \u00a0Here are some ideas to get you started:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Do you have a marketing campaign (Adwords, banner ad, directory advertisement) you are expecting to deliver XXX numbers of leads?<\/li>\n<li>Do you have a sales page you are hoping to have a XYZ% conversion?<\/li>\n<li>Do you need ABC number of pageviews in order to increase your advertising rates?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Just some ideas. \u00a0But sketch out what you need your website to do, then have a look at Google and see how you&#8217;re doing against those things. \u00a0The secret: you can&#8217;t improve if you don&#8217;t measure.<\/p>\n<p>Photo by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jorel314\/\">joreal314<\/a><\/p>\n<p><input id=\"gwProxy\" type=\"hidden\" \/> <input id=\"jsProxy\" onclick=\"jsCall();\" type=\"hidden\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: medium none; float: right;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.zemanta.com\/pixy.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><span class=\"zem-script pretty-attribution\"><script src=\"http:\/\/static.zemanta.com\/readside\/loader.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you know about the free market research available from Google Analytics? \u00a0Yes, free! \u00a095% 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[421],"tags":[479,1491,478,480,321],"class_list":["post-913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources","tag-business","tag-google","tag-google-analytics","tag-marketing","tag-search-engines","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pJPdG-eJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.evolutionarydesigns.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.evolutionarydesigns.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.evolutionarydesigns.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.evolutionarydesigns.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.evolutionarydesigns.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.evolutionarydesigns.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.evolutionarydesigns.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.evolutionarydesigns.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.evolutionarydesigns.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}