What You Should be Learning from Your Google Site Analytics

Creating a new website and social media platforms is only half the battle when it comes to promoting your business effectively. If you want your company to be number-one in Google rankings and thus in potential customers’ minds, Google site analytics is an important part of the equation.

With Google Analytics, you can get a good idea of who exactly is interacting with you online. And that’s the only way you can make your brand better.

Sure, seeing all of the numbers can seem overwhelming at first. But understanding them is essential for learning about traffic to your site, any trouble spots, and how to better engage your audience. Here is a rundown of what you should be learning from your Google site analytics.

Let’s get started!

Google Site Analytics Tell You Who Your Visitors Are

Once the Google site analytics tool is installed on your business website, you’ll be able to access a dashboard that gives you a bunch of helpful pieces of information. One of them is how many internet users visited your website within a particular period of time.

You can also find out which countries these individuals represent, as well as whether 3 p.m. on Friday is more popular than 8 a.m. on Monday.

This information can certainly be intriguing, but more importantly, it can help you to make smart business decisions going forward. For instance, maybe your company is based in the United States but a lot of traffic to your site hails from the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom might be an excellent market to expand into next.

Or perhaps you usually update your website’s blog on Tuesday but now notice, thanks to Google site analytics, that traffic increases on Friday. It might be time to change your calendar so that you post your top-notch content when the most users will see it.

How You’re Being Found

A “Traffic Sources” analytic available through Google Analytics is like pure gold in the online marketing world. Why? Because it tells you how your website’s visitors got to your site.

For example, did your potential customers see your business on a different website and then click through? Or did they enter your name in the Google search bar?

With Google site analytics, your traffic sources are organized into four groups. They are the following:

• Search traffic: Visitors click on their search results to reach your site
• Direct traffic: Users type your business URL into their browsers.
• Referral traffic: Users find your business URL through your newly launched Facebook page or an online news story
• Campaigns: Users reach your site through Google AdWords and other advertising campaigns

As soon as you know the sources of your website traffic, you can make adjustments to your business, marketing and PR strategies accordingly.

For example, perhaps you’ve put a lot of effort into building your Facebook platform but quickly learn that the majority of your visitors from social media are finding your site through Twitter. Making Twitter more a priority going forward would be a wise move.

Likewise, maybe you notice that most visitors to your site are bookmarking your site’s video pages. Time to step up your company’s video content and give it the spotlight on your website. Clearly, it’s your bread and butter when it comes to attracting potential customers.

How Long You’re Keeping Your Visitors

So, you now know that maybe 20,000 users are traveling to your website every month. But how much time are they spending on your site.

Two seconds? Four minutes?

Google Analytics can give you a detailed breakdown of how long you’re keeping your visitors. And, of course, the longer you can keep them, the better for you.

If users are leaving your site quickly, they’re probably not locating exactly what they’re needing. This means it’s time to ask yourself a few questions:

• Are you keeping your site up to date?
• Is your site aesthetically pleasing?
• Is your site user-friendly?

Keep in mind that Web visitors immediately develop opinions about your brand based on your site, so it needs to be as intuitive and appealing as you can make it.

Also, with Google site analytics, you can find out how many of your 20,000 visitors are new compared with those who have been on our site before.

Keep your eye on your site’s returning visitors, particularly if you run an e-commerce website, as this is an indication that you’re offering something that people value and can’t get enough of. So, it’s time to feed them more of it.

What Your Visitors Are Looking For

If you run a plumbing business, search engine keywords like “plumber near me” are likely bringing Web users to your site. But what exactly are your visitors searching for once they get to your website?

If you have a search box on your website, you can easily find out through Google Analytics what people are searching for. You can also tell if potential customers ended up refining their searches or if they left your site altogether.

This aspect of Google site analytics will essentially tell you if your prospective customers are finding exactly what they want and need on your website.

You can also find out if certain pages need information that is more specific. Plus, you can get some good ideas about what kinds of content to offer in the future to engage your site visitors even more.

Prioritize Your Analytics Data

What’s so great about Google Analytics is that you not only see the pieces of information you want about your site but also you can see them in the order you want to see them.

In other words, you’re in the driver’s seat when it comes to controlling your dashboard. #vroomvroom

In addition to determining which pieces of information you see first, you can create several dashboards, with each featuring several widgets. These widgets can show you particular metrics or even pie charts that compare metrics.

Your data can also be displayed in the form of a timeline showcasing one or a couple of metrics. Or you may see a table comparing two particular metrics.

The choice is yours.

And the best part? You can even change your date range so that all of your widgets reflect data from your chosen time period. This is perfect for viewing the big picture of your statistics for traffic and goal completions all in a single place.

How We Can Help

We offer a wide range of tips for marketing your website as well as tracking your traffic, uptime and hits.

Contact us to find out more about how we can help you to more effectively attract and keep potential customers online in 2018.