For professional marketers, Google Analytics is at the core
of really understanding your website and how your audience is using it. But for
those who outsource their marketing, or still haven’t quite figured out the
fundamentals, Google Analytics can be daunting.
Since your website is typically the goal landing point of
many marketing campaigns, it is vital that you know the digital journey users go
on when they click through.
User Experience
Who, what, where, when and why?
Understanding Google Analytics can give you a fountain of knowledge about user experience. It’s main purpose is to tell you everything you need to know about how people use your website.
Including who’s viewing it, where they’ve clicked through from, what they’re doing when on your website, and when it’s receiving the most live users.
This information can be extremely in-depth or top-level, depending on how much you want to find out. The main focus areas of your user’s experience should be the acquisition, behaviour and conversions sections of Google Analytics.
The acquisition is what will tell you where your visitors have come from, directly from Google, from a social media campaign or from a variety of other sources and mediums.
The behaviour will reveal exactly how users are engaging with your website content, if at all. You can view metrics like page views of promoted content, the loading speed of your website and the behaviour flow of users’ journeys through multiple pages of your website pages.
The conversions is where you can track exactly how many users completed your personalised website goals and any other conversions. So whether it’s making a purchase, completing a submission form, or something else entirely, you can track this here.
Demographics
If you’re just getting started with Google Analytics, then a good first step is to use their demographic analytics to see if they match up with your target audience.
From age, geographical location, gender, source/medium, device and plenty more, you can really understand your website users.
Before you jump into the deep end with metrics and insights that reveal more about a user’s behaviour, it’s good to check that your users are who you expected them to be. I.e, they match your target audience.
Fear not if you have attracted more than just your target demographics, you may have uncovered a brand new conversion opportunity. And if not, then you can do some more research into how these unexpected users reached your site and why.
From this kind of information, you can devise typical buyer personas, and build this into your future marketing campaigns. This ensures that any future campaigns account for the variety of demographics that engage with your website.
Regular reporting
Google Analytics is not something you should be checking once in a blue moon. Understanding google analytics is integral to knowing how your website works for others, what content they interact with most and where they might be dropping off.
However we know it’s hard to wrap your head around as a beginner, that’s why we offer analytics reporting as a service.
It can be apart of a full marketing audit, strategy development, or you might just want us to let you know more about how your website is functioning. Whatever you need, we can assist with Google Analytics reporting.
To find our more, check out our Reporting, Auditing and Analytics services.
Already know you need help with this? Get in touch with us now and we’ll kickstart your analytics services.