Using Google Analytics for Decision Making
So you’ve got a website. How do you know if it is helping you grow your business? How do you know if you’re putting your marketing dollars in the right places to not only drive the right kind of traffic to your site but also gauge how those visitors are helping your website reach your goals? The answer starts with Google Analytics.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a tool that measures every interaction on your website. When you create a Google Analytics Account, Google creates a small piece of javascript code that you need to add to every page of your website. If you are using a content management system like WordPress for your website, there are plugins such as Google Site Kit that you can add to the backend of your WordPress site where you only need to copy and paste a short identification code once and the plugin then propagates that code to every page of your website for you.
Once this code is on every page of your website, every time a user visits one of those pages, Google Analytics records information about their visit. Google Analytics can track which page of your site the user started on, how long they were on each page, the order in which they viewed pages of the site, among many other actions or events. Google Analytics can track information about each specific user as well, depending on the privacy settings the user has set up in their web browser. This information could include the city from which the user is visiting, the make and model and screen, resolution of the device they are using, and if you’ve enabled Demographics and Interest Reporting in Google Analytics, you can get information about the age and interests of the people visiting your site.
By examining some of this information and maybe building out some customized reports, you can get a more clear picture of not only how many visitors you are getting to your website, but where they are coming from on the internet, how they are getting to you, and most importantly if they are converting into a lead or sale.
Some information in your decision-making can start by looking at simple numbers in the Google Analytics data, but chances are you have to do a little more digging to make logical connections between various data elements to interpret why people may be behaving the way they are on your website.
Why Spend Time in Google Analytics?
It’s not hard to get lost in the rabbit hole of your Google Analytics data and waste a whole day fascinated by the numbers you see. But what does it all mean and how can you use your analytics data efficiently and effectively?
As the great business and management icon, Peter Drucker said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”
Growing your business or online presence starts with knowing where your business is right now, understanding where you want your business to be, and then determining the path to get there. And understanding where your website is right now started by looking at your Google Analytics data.
Google Analytics can provide tangible numbers about your website’s performance. The most basic place to start is to look at the number of website visitors and sessions every month, and by taking some time to set up a few more items in Google Analytics, you can dig into data such as how a specific ad, social media post or email campaign is resulting in sales through your website. Looking at your Google Analytics data is about so much more than just feeling good about knowing how many “hits” your website got each month. It’s about understanding what the numbers mean so you have clues for growing your business.
So how can you make your journey into Google Analytics as efficient and painless as possible? Get in touch with us below to begin measuring and optimizing your website traffic.