Google Analytics for Small Business 101
Business Technology | September 2, 2014
Confused About How to Use Google Analytics?
Many of us know that using Google Analytics to understand how our marketing efforts are doing can be a key to unleashing future success. However many are put off by the incredible immensity of the data facing them. You might want to start by answering the right questions: what are my goals, and what do I need to know to achieve them. Google Analytics can indeed be a staggering mountain of data to interpret, and without a game plan you can get lost quite easily. Let’s look at some ways to know which metrics to follow, and how to use Analytics to your best advantage.
Which metrics do you need?
Each business possesses its own needs, or course, but here are a few common needs.
- Total visitors – The number of both “unique” (first time) visitors, and total visits, which includes returning visitors.
- Keyword phrases – Which keywords are people inputting to get to your pages? This is critical data, and can help you know how to target your marketing.
- Most popular pages – See which of your pages are receiving the most visits.
- Visitors country of origin – Where in the world are these folks coming from.
- Referral pages – Seeing which pages are driving traffic to your website is extremely valuable information. This could be from affiliates, video, images, social media and many other sources.
- Search engines – Which of the search engines are delivering the most traffic to your pages.
Google Analytics advanced features to help decipher the data
Three advanced features are incredibly useful with regards to deciphering and sorting the data.
Custom reports enables you to craft a version of Analytics that suits your business specifically. You pick out the data that’s important to you, and organize it in whatever way you need to.
Advanced segmenting provides you with the ability to view various segments of your traffic, like mobile or tablet traffic.
Intelligence events, much like Google Alerts, sends a notification your phone or email when anything significant happens on your website, such as an up or down spike in traffic.
Don’t make the mistake of not using Google Analytics. Take the time to make it work for you!
Confused About How to Use Google Analytics?
Many of us know that using Google Analytics to understand how our marketing efforts are doing can be a key to unleashing future success. However many are put off by the incredible immensity of the data facing them. You might want to start by answering the right questions: what are my goals, and what do I need to know to achieve them. Google Analytics can indeed be a staggering mountain of data to interpret, and without a game plan you can get lost quite easily. Let’s look at some ways to know which metrics to follow, and how to use Analytics to your best advantage.
Which metrics do you need?
Each business possesses its own needs, or course, but here are a few common needs.
- Total visitors – The number of both “unique” (first time) visitors, and total visits, which includes returning visitors.
- Keyword phrases – Which keywords are people inputting to get to your pages? This is critical data, and can help you know how to target your marketing.
- Most popular pages – See which of your pages are receiving the most visits.
- Visitors country of origin – Where in the world are these folks coming from.
- Referral pages – Seeing which pages are driving traffic to your website is extremely valuable information. This could be from affiliates, video, images, social media and many other sources.
- Search engines – Which of the search engines are delivering the most traffic to your pages.
Google Analytics advanced features to help decipher the data
Three advanced features are incredibly useful with regards to deciphering and sorting the data.
Custom reports enables you to craft a version of Analytics that suits your business specifically. You pick out the data that’s important to you, and organize it in whatever way you need to.
Advanced segmenting provides you with the ability to view various segments of your traffic, like mobile or tablet traffic.
Intelligence events, much like Google Alerts, sends a notification your phone or email when anything significant happens on your website, such as an up or down spike in traffic.
Don’t make the mistake of not using Google Analytics. Take the time to make it work for you!