Just so we’re up to speed – “Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand” (wikipedia). Google Analytics is a digital marketing tool offered by Google, that integrates well with other Google tools, almost every type of website, and data tools like Cruxdata.
Well, how does Google Analytics work?
“Google Analytics lets you measure your advertising ROI as well as track your Flash, video, and social networking sites and applications” (Google). Essentially, Google Analytics let’s you understand what sources your website traffic is coming from, what links/buttons/pages/forms visitors are engaging with, which visitors are buying, their average visit time, and more. Google Analytics offers a deep look into your website's visitors, with as little or as much complexity as you're comfortable with. Google Analytics collects data from your website after you install a snippet of code in your website’s codebase.
To get the most out of Google Analytics, you need to understand some basic terminology. The following definitions will help you navigate Google Analytics reports and identify trends and patterns that can help your website succeed.
Visitor A visitor is someone who arrives at your website. They could be a person or a program that requests web pages from your site.
Sessions
A session begins when someone requests a page on your website and ends when they either leave the site or start another session. A session can include multiple page views, events and ecommerce transactions.
Pages/Visit This metric is the number of pages viewed per visit to your site. If a visitor spends 3 minutes on your website and views 3 pages in their visit, their pages/visit would be 1 (3 / 3 minutes).
Audience demographics These metrics can tell you things like location, age range, gender, interests and more to get a better idea of who visits your website. Armed with this information, you can create content that appeals to
There are several key features within Google Analytics that make it a great solution for most businesses looking to do more with their analytics: Google Analytics' enhanced ecommerce tracking feature enables you to track all transactions made on your website. This feature provides you with the ability to see how customers are navigating your site, what content they are engaging with, how much revenue you are generating by referring traffic sources, and so much more.
A robust set of features makes Google Analytics easy to utilize and implement into your current marketing strategy. When configured correctly, Google Analytics' can see how various social media platforms affect your site's traffic and revenue. This gives you the ability to then formulate a strategy that capitalizes on cultivating high performing channels, culling low performing channels, and developing relationships with influential social media personalities in order to gain more exposure for your business.
Google Analytics is one of the most valuable website tools ever created. It's both free and powerful - however many small business owners aren't taking advantage of all that Google Analytics has to offer. Given the amount of data and advanced features Google Analytics provides, it can be quite overwhelming to some small business owners. Cruxdata organizes and simplifies your Google Analytics data. Easily compares your website data alongside data from your social media accounts and SEO tools, all in an easy to read set of dashboards designed to help you make quick data-backed decisions for your marketing efforts.
