If you’re looking for an effective way to gain insight into your business’s website traffic, but you aren’t sure where to start, you should consider adding Google Analytics into your marketing strategy. For businesses, there are two options of Google Analytics to choose from. The free version of Google Analytics, or the paid version, which is Analytics 360. For this blog post, we’ll be discussing the free version of Google Analytics.
For businesses who want to use Google Analytics, it’s an easy, free solution that can help business owners track their website visitors and gain insight into their audiences more effectively.
The best part? It’s all stored in one easy-to-access place: your Google Marketing Platform. So if you aren’t tech-savvy, don’t worry.. you don’t need to be! Google Analytics is very easy to set up and understand.
All you need to do is get started with a free Google Analytics account to begin making the most of your insights to turn them into actionable results for your brand.
Understanding the Basics of Google Analytics
Even if you’re working with an agency that runs your account through Ahrefs or Moz to analyze website traffic, setting up a Google Analytics account can help your business gain insight into data that only Google has access to.
Think of Google Analytics as being a user-friendly tool for your business to see real-time reports of live users on your website, a comprehensive overview of your audience and unique insights into their profiles, the behavior of website visitors, how each visitor is acquired, and essential conversion goals you can set.
You can then take this information and tailor your marketing strategies to attract more customers and get more conversions.
How to Get Started with Your Google Analytics Account
You’ll want to get started with your Google Analytics account by initially creating a Google account (if you don’t already have one!).
Your Google account can be your Google email address if that makes it easier for you. Alternatively, you can create a new Google account associated with your business. From there, you’ll want to add a new view to your property. A view is associated with your website and can help you obtain a tracking code for your website. Once you’ve added a view, you’ll want to return to Google Marketing Platform’s Analytics or type in www.google.com/analytics into your web browser. Then, set up an Analytics account and fill in all required fields. From there, you can click “Get Tracking ID.”
Once you’ve obtained your unique tracking number, you’ll want to copy & paste the tracking code into each landing page that you want Google Analytics information for, after the opener <head> tag. Feeling lost? Ask a web developer to help!
When your tracking number has been successfully inputted, you’re ready to start tracking with Google Analytics!
Reviewing Analytics, Data, and Insights
Now that you’ve got your Google Analytics account up and running, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty. Remember that it’ll take approximately 24-48 hours for your website traffic information to become available. Once it’s up and running, you can start reviewing your analytics, data, and insight!
First, you’ll want to check out the sidebar of Google Analytics to gain access to your reports. On the sidebar, you’ll see a few options to choose from underneath the Reports tab. While these options may feel initially overwhelming, we can walk you through each report and what information is contained within.
Types of Google Analytics Reports
Realtime
Real-time reports are just that: a real-time report of how many visitors are on your website at this very moment. Yes, that means if there’s a visitor on your website while you’re viewing this report, you can see what they’re up to! In addition, you can also view where this specific visitor originated from, which is helpful if you’re tracking how successful a recent social media campaign you’ve posted is.
Audience
Through the Audience tab, you can gain insights into the audience viewing your website daily. This information includes their demographics, geo-locations, interests, technology they’re using while browsing your website, their lifetime value, users flow, and so much more. Through this unique information, you can get a general picture of your target audience and what type of information they’re accessing on your website.
Acquisition
How are you acquiring your audience? What channels are at your disposal, and which channels do you need to step up your marketing efforts with? When you view the Acquisition report tab, you can learn what your top channels are and which channels need to be strengthened. You can gain insight into your Google Ad campaigns and if they’re acquiring viewers, social network intel, and more.
Behavior
No website visitor behaves the same.. Or do they? With the Behavior report, you can review the behavior flow of your visitors and how they’re navigating through your website, site speed, searches on your site, and more. This is particularly beneficial to understand which pages draw visitors’ attention and which pages they’re dropping off at. Through this information, you can determine if you’re missing an opportunity on specific pages to engage with your website visitors or if you need to introduce a call-to-action!
Conversions
The Conversions report can indicate if a visitor to your website has purchased a product or service, filled out a contact form, stayed on your website for a lengthy amount of time, or performed a vital action that you indicate is a conversion goal for your brand. By setting conversion goals, you can keep track of them and learn the conversion rate across the board for your brand.
Taking Action from Google Analytics Reports
As a business owner, you’ll want to explore every report option to gain insights into your website traffic. Ideally, you’ll want to check your reports daily! From there, you can take action and formulate new marketing strategies or even delve into ways to generate SEO-rich content that increases leads and keeps visitors coming back.