Five Minute Marketing: How to Use Google Analytics
Google Analytics. It’s the thing every business owners knows they should be using, and probably has installed on their website, but when it comes to actually figuring out what in the world to look at in the crazy confusion of the dashboard, many of us stall out and close the window. Maybe it feels good to have Analytics installed, but if you don’t know how to use it, it’s not going to help you in the long run!
I can’t possibly cover every aspect of the Google Analytics dashboard in one blog post, but here is a five-minute tutorial on how you can start using it to better your business today. Here are the top 3 metrics you should check.
Audience Demographics: Navigate to this by selecting Audience-Demographics-Overview. What you are looking for here is whether your website is drawing in your ideal client. Does the age breakdown and gender of your visitors match your typical customer? If not, what can you do to attract a more ideal person? Or, if the majority of your visitors could still be customers, how can you create content that draws them in and keeps them on your site until they buy?
Bounce Rate: Navigate here by selecting Audience-Overview. The bounce rate is the percentage of website visitors who leave after only visiting one page. Obviously, the lower the number the better this is! Your goal bounce rate will differ wildly by sector, but generally the target is 40-60%. No matter what your number is, ask yourself this: how can I keep website visitors here longer? Maybe you can create a clear ‘next step’ so that people can’t help but click to a second page when they first visit. Maybe you need to provide more links from one piece of content to the next. Either way, the more people who go from the first page they see to the next, the better!
Audience Behavior: Navigate here by selecting Behavior-Overview. This dashboard will show what your most popular website pages are. Some of these will probably not be a surprise (such as your home page!), but look a little lower than that. Do you have a blog post that is bringing a lot of traffic to your site? Consider how you can update this and link it to other content for better user retention. Is your #2 most popular page woefully outdated? Go and update it now! No matter what, make sure the pages in your top 10 are up-to-date, relevant, and have a clear ‘next step’ to keep visitors on your website longer.
By now you can see that there are dozens of other factors to look at in Google Analytics, but don’t get overwhelmed - just get started! Understanding these three elements of your website will give you a good picture of how you can continue to improve your website, and where to go from here.
The Quick + Easy Guide to Google
You know that as a business owner, being found on Google is a game-changer...if only you understood how to get on that elusive front page. This guide will teach you my top 5 quick, easy strategies to implement so you can start making your way to the top of the pack.