Have you ever wondered what type of visitors your website gets? You may have asked yourself questions like, how many visitors am I getting, where are they coming from or what pages are being viewed? Google Analytics is a free tool offered by Google that gives you those answers and more! Many have heard of GA before but a vast majority of companies that have website do not take advantage of it. In this article you will learn the basics and importance of using Google Analytics’ website tracking and converting tools.

Using Google Analytics

The most important thing when having a website is to know how it is performing. It is crucial to know what is working and what is not working. This information will help you improve the user experience and convert more website visitors into customers. Google Analytics can be overwhelming to new users but if you stick to the basics you can get a lot of useful information out of it. By understanding some basic GA tools you will better comprehend the activity of your website.

Visits & Unique Visitors: This will tell you how many times your site was viewed and how many individual people visited it.

  • Importance: This will help you determine just how many people your website is reaching on a regular basis and give you the ability to analyze fluctuations or traffic throughout the year.

Pageviews: Pageviews tracks how many pages were seen and can calculate the average number of pages per visit.

  • Importance: You should use this information to determine how interested a user is in your website and what pages are popular and unpopular.

Visit Duration & Bounce Rate: Each visit is timed so you know how long someone was on your site or how quickly they left. A ‘bounce’ is someone who came to your site and left right away.

  • Importance: It is important to engage a user when they go to your site. When you have a high bounce rate you may consider changing the layout of a page or the content to appeal more to a visitor.

Demographics: GA tracks identifies geographical information on your visitors so you know where in the world your visits are coming from, down to the city level.

  • Importance: Knowing where your audience is located can give you the opportunity to cater your website to that geographical area with pictures, content and information.

Traffic Sources: It is one thing to know what people are going once they get to your site but it is just as important to know how they got there. By tracking how users navigated to your website you can determine what search engine and keyword they used to find you, what referring website they came from, or what social media outlet they used.

  • Importance: If you are marketing your website on search engines or other websites, it is crucial to know what type of activity it is generating. This will help you determine if these channels are successful or not. By knowing the keywords which people are using to find your website will also give you the opportunity to tailor your website to supply the most relevant information to those visitors.

Conversions: The ultimate goal with any website is to convert the visitor. A conversion can range from an email subscribe, purchase, form inquiry, or just a particular amount of time on the site. With GA you can set up your custom conversion tracking to quantify just how many visitors are converting.

  • Importance: Arguably the most important factor determining a website’s success is how it converts its visitors. By tracking online conversions you will not only be able to tell how many converted but also who converted and how they converted which will help you expand on that success.

In summary, Google Analytics gives you’re the ability to track your website, in all aspects. No matter what level of expertise you are at, GA gives you the opportunity to get important tracking information. It is essential to use this tracking information to determine how your website is performing and how you can improve its performance.