There’s a misconception out there that every web designers’ the same. This is such a bad assumption. Just because some people call themselves web designers doesn’t mean they know how to design a good website. A professional web designer will know what fonts to use, how big the headers need to be, what colors to use and what not to use and how much text to put on a page before the reader pops a blood vessel in their eye. I say talented web designers need to stick together and join forces to fight against bad websites. So many times I see a business owner decide to go with someone who calls themselves a marketing company or a web designer that has poor taste. They think if they pay money for these services, that means they’re going to get a great site. I know I seem pessimistic and harsh, but I’m getting tired of hearing the same old stories. I say to you business owners do your research! Find out who’s working on your site and I don’t mean just the company you’re going with. I mean the actual designer. How much experience does he or she have? Did he or she ever take art lessons. Make sure you convey what you want on your site. Get down to the details. Remember, it’s your money, you’re business.
Ever wonder how many people are going to your website? Can they even find your website? How long do they stay on there to read all of your content? These are very typical questions asked by several owners of websites.
Google Analytics is a free and powerful traffic reporting system that you can easily find the answers you’re looking for regarding your website. It measures the amount of traffic and behaviors of your visitors each day. You can get in-depth results about your site on printable reports or you can e-mail them out to whomever. Using Google Analytics will save you alot of time and money figuring out where your audience is and how to connect with them. You can use it to your advantage for your marketing strategies and campaigns.
This tutorial will be an overview on how to get started and understanding the basics of Google Analytics. In future articles, we will go into more specifics.
Please check out this video on how to setup a free Google Analytics account first before reading on. It will show you step-by-step how to get started.
The Dashboard
Now that you an account, we can start analyzing your website! You have several features in the Dashboard section including what looks like a blue graph. Scroll over the dots. You will notice the date and amount of visits per day. If you want to see the amount of visits per week or month, click on the small square icons in the top right corner to change the views. Okay, let’s explore the other features.
The Site Usage section gives you a nice summary of Visits, Pageviews, Pages/ Visits, Bounce Rate, Average Time on Site and New Visits. Here’s each feature broken down:
1. Visits give you the number of visits within a certain time period. You start off with 30 days, but you can later change this number once you get more comfortable.
2. Pageviews is the amount of pages visitors viewed.
3. Pages/ Visits is the average amount of pages a visitor viewed when visiting your website.
4. Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors that realized after getting to your website, they were “bounced” out of your site. You can use this percentage to figure out if people are using the back button or realizing your website is not exactly what they had in mind. Use this to your advantage. Know what can attract visitors to stay and read your content. Try to keep you percentage below 30-25%. If it’s too high in the 50’s, consider doing some house cleaning on your website. Add some cool images, check you content, make sure your navigation is user-friendly and your search engine optimization is working.
5. Average Time on Site is exactly what the title says. It’s the average time a visitor spends on your website during a visit.
6. % New Visits is the percentage of visitors that are new compared to your overall count of visitors. You can see higher results especially when you implement a new marketing campaign. If the percentage is low, it just means that you have repeat visitors that keep coming back for more.
The Visitors Overview is a summary of who’s going to your website and how many in the last 30 days. You can scroll over the blue buttons just like in the top graph. It works the same way by telling you how many visits per day. To get more detailed, you can click on the “view report” in blue. In the report, you can see a breakdown of the action on your website. Feel free to take the time to look at each feature. We will go over these report in more detail in our next tutorial.
The Map Overlay is really handy because it gives you a geographical layout of your visitors’ origin. It pinpoints even down to the state/ city. You can use this tool to see where your market is coming from. Are you attracting more from your local area or is it globally? You can click on the “view report” to see more details and the breakdown of each visitor.
The Traffic Sources Overview is one of my favorites in Google Analytics. This gives you insight of where you traffic is coming from on the internet. Do you have more visitors from search engines or are your external links such as Facebook and LinkedIn doing their job? Again, you can click on the “view report” to see the exact websites that are helping you out.
Finally, but not least, Content Overview is one of the most valuable features to study. This overview will help you get understanding of your website and the people who visit. This feature lays out all your pages within your website to help you see who’s going where. Are visitors clicking on the contact page more than the services or are they just not even interested in contacting you? Do they get bored with you about page? These are vital questions you need answers for. This knowledge will help you design a successful website.
Thank you for reading our tutorial on Market Your Business Using Google Analytics: Part 1. We will be posting more articles that will explain each feature in more detail and how to use them to your advantage in marketing for your business. If you have any questions about Google Analytics, please contact us.
