For businesses of all sizes, Google Analytics is an incredibly helpful tool, but it can be challenging to understand due to its numerous complex terms and metrics. Use this guide to become familiar with some of the most crucial metrics and terms, to learn what Google Analytics is and how to set up a Google Analytics account.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a free analytics tool that you can use to evaluate how well websites and applications are performing. If you already use other Google tools, like Google Ads, Search Console, or Data Studio, GA's integration with those platforms makes it very convenient.
You can get a tonne of data about your website from Google Analytics, including the following:
- How many people visit your website
- Information on the demographics of your visitors
- How many people use mobile devices to access your website?
- where the visitors to your website are coming from
- Which marketing strategies are most effective?
- What are the most visited pages on your website?
- How many site visitors turn into leads or buyers
- How to increase the speed of your website
Is Google Analytics free?
Google Analytics comes in both free and paid variations. Most small and midsize businesses should be able to get by with just the free version of GA, while the paid version gives access to more sophisticated features.
A personal account manager, advanced funnel reporting, advanced attribution modelling, roll-up reporting, more views, dimensions, and metrics per property, are all included in the paid version of Analytics 360, which is designed for enterprise-level businesses. The annual subscription fee for Analytics 360 starts at $150,000 and rises once your website receives more than 500 million monthly visitors.
Why is Google Analytics important?
Because your website acts as a central hub for the majority of your digital traffic, like the majority of businesses, Google Analytics can have a significant impact on your company. The best way to fully understand how successful your marketing campaigns are at generating traffic is to analyse your website because any other online marketing you do, such as social media or search engine ads, will probably eventually direct users to your website.
According to Mark Condon, CEO and founder of ShotKit, "the best benefit of using Google Analytics is monitoring what channels your traffic comes from." Each traffic source (Google CPC, Facebook, organic) that is color-coded in Google Analytics to show how many visits are from that channel is clearly visible.
Here are a few more significant advantages of Google Analytics:
- Features for data visualisation make it simple to comprehend your data.
- Reporting tools make it simple to gather, present, and compare any set of data or set of data sets.
- All information is gathered and reported instantly.
- The information you have about your audience is complete and simple to use.
What information can you get from Google Analytics?
A wealth of data about your website, your marketing approach, and your audience is available from Google Analytics. You can use it to keep an eye on the following elements of your website:
- Internet marketing techniques
- Site information
- User encounter
- Device capabilities
- What is effective
- What requires improvement
Additionally, GA automatically gathers data, so gathering crucial metrics about your marketing efforts requires little to no effort on your part. It gives you useful data about your customers, enabling you to improve the user experience and promote repeat business. For instance, you can customise your website to meet the specific needs of your visitors using demographic data about them (such as age, gender, and location) or change the way your website looks to accommodate the devices that people use to access it.
You can "slice data in different ways to answer a lot of questions about how your website is used," according to Josh Peichoto, a digital strategy manager. This information directs how to make changes that fit with both your company's objectives and actual customer usage.
The search engine optimisation of your site may significantly benefit from customising it in response to information you learn from Google Analytics. By raising your website's ranking in search engine results, SEO aids in boosting website traffic. Your website will receive more leads and conversions as more people visit it. You can improve your website's search engine visibility by creating content that is tailored to your target audience.
Before analysing the data, specify your specific goals to maximise the benefits of Google Analytics.
According to Tonya Davis, marketing manager at ThoughtLab, "you should learn about how Google Analytics would benefit you specifically." "The use of GA by an owner of an e-commerce site will differ from that of a blog site. To understand how analytics can assist you, you must be aware of the objectives you are attempting to meet. Do you want more visitors? improved website engagement? increased conversions? You can learn exactly how to use Analytics to help you achieve your goal by having a clear goal in mind.
Understanding Google Analytics terminology and metrics
Understanding the pertinent metrics and terminology is crucial for making the best use of Google Analytics. The key terms and most typical metrics tracked by Google Analytics are listed below.
Terms to know
Metric:
Metrics are numerical measures of data that demonstrate how well a website is doing in relation to a particular category. Sessions, users, page views, bounce rates, entrance rates, and exit rates are a few examples of typical Google Analytics metrics.
Dimension:
A dimension is the standard that a metric is evaluated against and can offer a more focused set of data. For instance, you could measure sessions (the metric) by country (the dimension) as opposed to just sessions. Sessions by page, page views by device, average time on page by channel, and bounce rate by channel are additional examples of dimensions in Google Analytics.
User:
A user in the context of Google Analytics is a distinct website visitor. Google Analytics will give each new visitor to your website a "unique ID" or "client ID" that is saved as a cookie in the visitor's browser. The most frequently monitored GA metric is user count.
Page view:
Every time a user views a page, a page view is tracked. But remember that the quantity of page views doesn't provide all the information. For instance, when a user visits a page, it counts as one page view; however, when the same user reloads the same page, it counts as two page views. Additionally, if a user leaves a page and then returns to it, that would be considered another page view.
User behavior:
Google Analytics' behaviour section demonstrates how users interact with your website, including the pages they visit and the clicks or purchases they make.
Session:
Every time a visitor comes to your website, GA records a session, which expires after 30 minutes of inactivity. Any user activity that is tracked during this time, such as page views, clicks, or transactions, is counted as one. The user will start a new session if they return to your website several hours or two days later, for instance.
Source:
This displays the sources of your website's traffic, such as search engines or email links.
Landing page:
When someone enters your website, the landing page is the first page they see. Therefore, it's crucial to optimise your landing page to make sure that your visitors can find the information they require quickly.
Organic traffic:
Any visitor who arrives on your website as a result of unpaid search results, such as someone conducting a Google search and clicking on your website, is referred to as organic traffic.
Metrics
Bounce rate:
The bounce rate displays the percentage of site visitors who made only one request, such as viewing a single page, to the GA server. The bounce rate, or number of visitors who enter a website and immediately leave without viewing any other pages, is a measure of website traffic.
Average session duration:
In order to calculate this metric, you must divide the total duration of all sessions by the total number of sessions. It shows you how long visitors stay on your website.
Percentage of new sessions:
A new session is created when a user visits your website without a client ID. This metric displays how many visitors to your website are making their first visit during any given time frame.
Sessions by channel:
Google Analytics divides your traffic into different categories so you can more easily monitor the effectiveness of various channels, including direct, paid, organic, and social. The quantity of sessions held under each channel group is referred to as sessions by channel.
Pages per session:
You can get a good idea of the overall engagement on your website by calculating pages per session, which is done by dividing the total number of page views by the number of sessions.
Average time on page:
This represents the time an individual user spends on a single page. Long user sessions on pages are what you want to aim for because they indicate engaging content.
Page views by page:
This metric displays the number of page views your website had in a specific period of time.
Entrances:
The entrance percentage measures how many visitors enter your website through a particular page. In other words, it counts the number of times a particular page was a user's first view during a session.
Exit percentage:
This statistic displays the page that a user last viewed during a particular session. When compared to other pages on your website, a page's exit rate may be unusually high. This could mean that the page's content isn't compelling visitors to stay.
Device usage:
The devices visitors are using to access your website are displayed by this metric. Using this information, you can modify the layout of your website to make it more accommodating for these kinds of devices (such as a smartphone or tablet).
Behavior flow:
Based on how they were "acquired," behaviour flow reveals the number of visitors who move through your website. You can sort by acquisition type (source, medium, and channel) and view individual pages.
Site speed:
This metric has the potential to be an excellent way to assess ranking, usability, and comparison to competitors. If your website doesn't load quickly enough, Google won't rank it as highly as your rivals' websites, and visitors are more likely to leave and visit another website to find the information they need.
Goal completions:
The number of times a website visitor completes a particular "goal" on your website is referred to as "goal completions" in the context of GA. Goals can be specified, such as visits to a specific URL, purchases, or email sign-ups.
How to set up Google Analytics
Google will walk you through the easy setup process for Google Analytics.
Even if you don't know how to use it yet, set up Google Analytics when you launch your website, advised Michelle Bourbonniere, SEO editor at Edited by Michelle. "Set it up when you launch, even if you don't intend to learn how to use Google Analytics to the fullest. To be able to recognise long-term trends, start data collection early.
The six steps to installing Google Analytics are as follows:
1. Set up a Google account.
To sign up for Google Analytics, you must have a working Google account. When you create a Google account, you'll instantly get a Google email address. It's crucial to have a thorough understanding of the GA hierarchy when setting up your Google account:
from HubSpot
The highest level of the hierarchy is an organisation, which stands in for the whole business. Multiple GA accounts may be held by one organisation. The accounts that are necessary for using Google Analytics come next. Accounts do not necessarily refer to user accounts; you can either assign a single property to every account or a number of properties to a single account. Properties, which are websites or apps, are third in the hierarchy. Each property needs to have two views, one with no configuration and the other with filters that block traffic from your own organisation, spam, and bots.
2. Create a Google Analytics account.
Create your account here by selecting one of the options below:
- Account number
- Which information do you want to give Google?
- (Website, apps, or both) What you want to measure
- Name of your website, sector, and time zone
3. Add the name, URL and industry of your website.
Choosing which account you want to add the property (your website) to is the third step. You will now create your property, give it a name, and enter the website address.
4. Add a view to your property.
Next, log into your account and add a view to your property by choosing the web or app type of view from the menu when creating a view. You can add up to 25 views per property in Google Analytics.
5. Add a tracking code.
In addition to a global site tag, which is a tracking ID code you must add to every page you want to track, creating a property will give you access to a special ID that can be used for tracking. On each page you want to track, paste your global head tag immediately following the opening head> tag. Next, decide whether your site is static, dynamic, hosted on a website, or uses Google Tag Manager to help you precisely configure your data collection.
6. Verify that the code is working.
Finally, check that your code is functioning properly by visiting your Google Analytics portal. You can do this by opening a different browser tab or your smartphone while browsing your website and going to the Real-Time Reports section. The report should show at least one visitor to your site if everything is functioning properly.
Google Analytics reports
Google Analytics offers the chance to gather different reports on various facets of your website in each segment. On Google Analytics, there are two main types of reports: standard reports, which are the pre-set reports listed on the dashboard's left side, and custom reports, which can either be made entirely from scratch or by modifying standard reports to suit your needs.
Google Analytics' five standard report segments are Real-Time, Audience, Acquisition, Behaviour, and Conversions. Continue reading for a description of each standard report segment and the useful information it can provide.
Real-time reports
You can keep an eye on all website activity in real time by using real-time reports. Real-time reports can be helpful for tracking responses to a new campaign as they come in or for getting an instant snapshot of your online activity.
A real-time report displays the number of active users on your site, the most popular pages, the top referral sources, and the top countries from which users are accessing the site. Real-time reports are advantageous in situations like:
- Setting up campaigns, testing, and resolving issues
- Real-time campaign monitoring
- embracing current trends
- keeping track of the location of your audience
Audience
You can learn more about your audience—everyone who visits your website—by looking at audience reports. With 15 subsections in Google Analytics' Audience section, there is a tonne of specific data available for your use.
You can find data on users, sessions, page views, bounce rates, and more in the audience section. Additionally, you can change the time period for data collection. Some of the metrics you can see are as follows:
- active customers
- views on apps per user
- Views on pages per user
- income per user
- session length
- Sessions
- Transactions
- Demographics
- User actions
- Devices
Acquisition
The acquisition segment shows metrics like the total number of visits, new visits, and repeat visits; traffic sources; and organic traffic rate to help you understand how users are arriving at your website. The user behaviour is also broken down in this section, with metrics like bounce rates, clicks, pages per visit, user interaction, and average visit duration being tracked.
You can better understand your customers and how they use your website by using all of this information. After that, you can make changes to your website to better serve your visitors. Channels, all traffic, and all referrals are important reports in the acquisition segment.
Behavior
The behaviour segment tracks all user activity on your website, including clicks, purchases, bounces, duration of visits, and sessions. You can identify areas that require improvement by using the information gathered in the behaviour segment to better understand your audience and how visitors engage with the content on your website. Consider adding a pop-up with an incentive or call to action if, for instance, a page on your site has a high exit rate and you want to persuade visitors to stay there or visit another page instead.
Conversions
When a visitor to your website performs a crucial action, such as purchasing something, filling out a form, or spending a lot of time on the site, Google Analytics refers to this as a conversion. You can access multichannel funnel reports after setting up a conversion goal or e-commerce tracking to see the conversion rate of how all of your online channels, including social ads, paid advertisements, and website traffic, combined to generate your sales.
Data from Google Analytics' conversions segment can show you your marketing strategy's strengths and weaknesses.
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