Google Analytics is an extremely helpful tool to enable business and website owners figure out whether their website is effective in bringing in visitors and converting them to customers. Most businesses have some kind of website, but if they aren’t tracking what is actually happening when users visit, then they don’t know if it’s really an effective business tool. According to the gurus at Search Engine Journal, “to make effective online business decisions, we must have an idea of where traffic is coming from and what visitors are doing while there.” Want to get started taking your business to the next level using Google Analytics? Let’s look at some key features this free tool offers.
First, the basic, default data on your default homepage shows you how many visitors your website had over a period of time. The time range may be adjusted in the upper right corner. You can also choose to view the graph in hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly segments.
On the graph to the right, notice the Bounce Rate. The bounce rate is the percentage of users who quickly left your site after landing on your home page or landing page. Ideally, you want this percentage to be below 50%, which would indicate that more than half of the visits to your site were intentional. The other data in this graph is self-explanatory.
Next, wouldn’t you love to know where all those hits are coming from? Are they local interest or are you seeing a spike in traffic from overseas? The image below shows the location of your site’s visitors. If you are a small local business that is targeting local consumers, a lot of hits from Asia may not be a positive development. This information may prompt you to use more locally-targeted advertising.
Along the left column of the screen are several tabs. A really helpful tab is Behavior. Data in this tab will enable you to do a page-by-page analysis of your website’s performance. Behavior Flow reveals the pages users land on and where they go next on your site. Take some time to examine the typical flow patterns; are they what you expected or what you intended? Next go to Exit Pages within the Site Content section. Exit pages are the last page a user landed on before they left your site. Check out both your top performing and lowest performing pages. Take the opportunity to analyze what is great about your top performing pages and what is not so great about your lowest performing pages. You’ll want to make changes to your lowest performing pages, such as improving the text content, choosing attractive graphics, and possibly adding a call-to-action or other way to provide 2-way interaction with the user.
Now you see how you can improve your website’s performance by analyzing user data to make concrete action steps. We’ve only scratched the surface of all that Google Analytics offers. Not sure what to do next? Contact Morris Marketing, we offer a free website evaluation to help you get started. Our VP of Operations, Kristina Bynum, has this to say about Google Analytics: “Adding it to your website is super easy, it’s just a block of code. Interpreting the data and then changing SEO behaviors to improve the site is what we help with.” Give us a call today at 919-424-8314 .
