Google Analytics - Why You Need It

Google Analytics

Lately we’ve come across several clients who don’t have Google Analytics. And the few that do don’t utilize the wealth of information it provides. For FREE.

If you have a web page or blog there is no reason you shouldn’t sign up for Google Analytics. Did we mention it’s FREE?

What is it? Google Analytics is a tool to help you understand how people are finding you on the web. By way of graphs and charts, it shows you what sites are sending traffic to you via referral, and what keywords people used to be shown your site by a search engine.

While it may be called “Analytics”, it’s really up to you to do the analyzing of the data.

Start at the “Dashboard”. Under “Site Usage”, you see a snapshot of the information provided. Clicking on each of the categories in the boxes below take you to a more detailed explanation.

“Visitors Overview” tells you, just as it implies, how many visitors you had, how many were new visitors, how many pages they read, how long they stayed, etc. It also tells you what browsers they used, how many were mobile phone visitors, and more.

“Map Overlay” gives very detailed location information when you drill down into the menus.

Under “Traffic Sources Overview”, the “Search Engines”  keywords and phrases alone can tell you a great deal about your traffic and how people are finding you. If the commonly searched keywords and phrases that brought people to your site aren’t the focus of your website or blog, then you should reconsider your post or page content. Make sure to use relevant keywords in your post or page titles, pretty URLS utilizing the keywords from the post or page, and the same keywords within your post or page.

“Referring Sites” will tell you which sites are sending traffic to you, and how much in any given period of time. And, as in each of these sub categories, how many pages they rad, and how long they stayed.

“Direct Traffic” is a combination of several things: bookmarks, feed subscriptions, or typing in your URL.

“Content Overview” is, as the name implies, all about your content. What are your top landing pages? It tells you how long people spent on each page, and even the top exit pages.

Now, Google Adwords is another story. We’re trying to work with them for one of our clients, and we are NOT impressed. The various customer service and account reps seem to be on different pages on what exactly they can and do provide. The one account rep to whom we’ve been assigned leaves much to be desired, such as manners and a modicum of knowledge on the subject at hand. If it wasn’t for the $100 coupon (which they are having trouble applying to the account!) we would have ditched them before we’d even started. Maybe more on that later.

Need help setting up and deciphering Google Analytics? Want specific information and assistance in applying that to your website? Contact us! We’d love to help.