What is Google Analytics?

When it comes to understanding how well your website is working for you as a marketing tool, Google’s free analytics tool provides a wealth of information about who visits your site, how they find it, and what they do on it once they arrive.

The first thing you need to do is sign up for a Google Analytics account.  Once you sign up, you’re presented with a code & instructions on how to add the code to your website.  This code tracks activity (not people) every time your web pages are viewed and the data gathered can be viewed in easy to understand reports.

What will I learn about my website by using Google Analytics?

• How many visitors come to my website on a daily basis?
• Which one of my page(s) are the most popular and do they view more than that page?
• How long does someone stay on my site?
• What does my bounce rate (the percentage of visitors who enter & leave the site rather than to continue viewing other pages) look like?
• What keywords are people typing into Google to find my site?
• What links are people clicking on and from what site are they coming from to find me (referring links)?
• What city are people in who find me?
• How well am I converting visitors into customers?

Armed with this info, you can edit your site to improve the content on key pages, focus on the keywords that send you the visitors you are trying to target, and ultimately increase your conversion rate of visitors into customers via order/inquiry pages.

What will I see when I log into Google Analytics?

When you first log in to analytics, you’re presented with a ‘Visitors Overview’ page detailing the number of visits your site has had over the last month. The graph below gives you a quick insight into your overall traffic and how it varied throughout the week.

Underneath the graph, there is a summary of your visitor activity.

How do I understand my visitor activity? 

• Visits: The total number of visits to your site.
• Unique visitors: Some people visit more than once, this is the number of individual visitors.
• Pageviews: The total number of pages which were viewed by your visitors.
• Pages/visit: Pageviews divided by number of visits.
• Avg. Visit Duration: The average amount of time each visitor spends on your site.
• Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who viewed one page & left right away. For most businesses, the lower this number is, the better. (Google average is 40-60%)
• % New Visits: The percentage of visitors new to your website. Where the website is mainly a marketing tool, a high source of new visits is important as they are potential new customers.

How are people finding my website?

In the menu at the left of the page, there’s a ‘Traffic Sources’ option for the number of visits to your website. In the overview, you’ll see a breakdown of the ways visitors are finding your site.

• Search traffic: Percentage of people who found your site from a search engine (like Google, Bing, etc…)
• Referral Traffic: Visitors who clicked on a link at another website to come to your site.
  • NOTE: Clicking on ‘Search’ & ‘Organic’ in the left menu will give you a breakdown of the keywords they typed to find you.
• Direct Traffic: the number of people who typed your website address directly into their browser (possibly from a business card, advertisement, or maybe they already knew of it).
  • NOTE: Choosing ‘Sources’ & ‘Referrals’ in the menu provides a list of these sites.

What pages are my most popular?

The ‘Content’ option in the menu allows you to see which web pages receive the most traffic. You can also look at ‘landing pages’ to see which pages your customers most commonly ‘land’ on after a Google search and ‘exit pages’ to see which pages are the last ones people see before they leave your site.  These options provide insight into which website’s pages are working well for you (low bounce rate), and which could be working harder to convert visitors into new customers (higher bounce rate & exit %).

Am I hitting my target market?

Demographics are important to any site; it tells you whether or not your website is being received by the audience you’re intending it for. You can view your website visitors in real-time and view visitor flow in considerable detail – allowing you to update pages where visitors drop off the site.

• The ‘audience’ menu option allows you to find out more about your visitors.
• The ‘location’ option lets you see where they’re visiting from (by country, city or continent – if you want).
• Find out information on what languages they use
• What type of computer or device are they using (PC, mobile phone, or tablet).

In summary, Google Analytics allows you to understand how well your site is working for you as a marketing tool and provides valuable insight to better serve your existing visitors and explore opportunities for more.

If you’ve studied your analytics and aren’t happy with your results, ARGUS can help! Contact us today for a private consultation.