What is Google Analytics and How to Use it in Your Business

Google Analytics gives businesses the ability to analyze and gain insight into what’s working and what isn’t and then adjust accordingly.

So, what exactly is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a web analysis tool that is offered through Google. It’s part of their marketing platform and it’s been around since 2005. With Google Analytics you can find out how many people have accessed your content, how long they spent with it, if they took action because of it and more. Google Analytics can be an integral part of your marketing strategy as your business grows through online marketing. Understanding the basics of Google Analytics is helpful for business owners, even if you plan to hire professionals to interpret and make decisions based on the reports.

Know WHAT you want to measure with Google Analytics and your GOALS for those measurements. 

You will be most effective when you set a meaningful goal or target for your online measurements. For example, it is important to know how many people visit your website as well as how many new people you want to visit your website each month. This way you can make enhancements and adjustments to your content in order to meet the goals. As opposed to simply reporting on the stats each month. 

In the beginning, the goals set may simply be educated guesses or starting points. As you begin reviewing the Google Analytics, you’ll be able to use the metrics that you’re seeing and build more meaningful goals. With each new marketing campaign, you can define the changes you expect to see within Google Analytics and judge how effective the campaigns seem to be. 

Understand the definition of the common metrics

Following are common metrics and terms that you’ll see within the Google Analytics tool. Becoming familiar with these will help you set your goals and interpret your results. 

1. Sessions –

A session is a visit to your website. A session can include multiple page views and can vary in length. A single person could visit your website multiple times during the same day and this would count as multiple sessions. 

 

2. Users –

A user is a unique site visitor. You can count how many different people have visited your site by reviewing the number of users. 

 

 

3. Average duration –

This looks at how long an average user spends on your site, and on each page. 

 

 

4. Pageviews –

This refers to the number of unique pages that are viewed (e.g., home page, About Us, Services, etc.

 

 

5. Bounce Rate –

Bounce rate is important because it refers to the number of users who come to your site but only view one page and then leave. 

 

 

6. Channels –

Channels are tracked to determine where your site visitors are coming from. For example, a link posted to social media versus a link in an email, etc. 

 

 

Google Analytics can be used to eventually use custom dashboards and track detailed data points leading to actionable insights in your business strategy. If you’re ready to learn more there are online courses or professional marketing firms, such as Gray Digital Group that can help! 

Connect with us today!

 


Sources:

https://www.foleon.com/blog/how-to-use-and-understand-google-analytics

Images:

Channels

Bounce Rate

Pageviews

Average Duration

Users

Sessions