Google Analytics is such a powerful tool to use - it actually allows you to decide what you want to measure on your website. You can literally put this tool to work for you and personalize it as well. You can define your ideal objective, goals as well as specifics.
If all you want to know is who visited your website and how they got there - that is simple enough and you can do that. However, the power of Google Analytics lay in the ability to define goals and put on filters that will allow you to do in-depth analysis of your website.
What do I mean?
Let me break it down for you so you know how to use Google Analytics and have the biggest advantage. First of all, Google works with objectives, goals, and specifics, these allow you to really hone in on what you are trying to accomplish when managing your website.
Objectives: An objective is the big picture – what do you want your website to do? What is the purpose for your website what do you want visitors to do once they are there.
If you are an e-commerce site your objective is to sell products and make a profit. Using Google Analytics, you can actually see the products that are selling and what products are not - helping you to pull the product that is not selling or market it in a different way. This of course will translate into big profits for your business.
Goals: If objectives are the result you ultimately want to achieve with your website, a goal is a short term aim.
What has t
o happen for you to learn which products sell and which don't? Or perhaps your goal is to sell 30 more widgets within 6 months. You can do this using Google analytics as the tool and setting goals within the application.
Specifics: Now that you have outlined your objectives and goals you are ready to use Google to your advantage. Specifics are the “how” the action steps you will take to reach what you really want.
Example: You would set up the sales page and a funnel (using Google Analytics) to measure how traffic comes in to your sales page. Google can tell you where visitors are entering as well as what page your visitors are exiting from. Knowing how your visitors are responding to your website allows you to go to these pages and tweak them so you can get the results you want.
Google has made it easy to place the code in your web pages, they do the initial metrics for you and the best thing is it is free.If you are not particularly savvy on html or how to apply the code have your web developer apply it to every page. You can even generate .pdf to analyze the month by month statistics.
Once the code is embedded in your web pages, Google will start collecting data and within a few days you will see countless stats related to your site. Then it is time for you to become familiar with the dashboard that Google provides - you will be able to set up the goals and specifics of your website.
You access all the data through the Internet so you can login and set parameters right then and there.
Another great function of Google Analytics is that you can set up different profiles for one website. You can put different code on different websites of course, but you can also break down one website into different profiles and monitor them independently, or you can use the different profiles to see which sections of your website are effective and which are not.
AdWords and Analytics Google
AdWords is a pay-per-click advertising program. Essentially you would buy keywords and then pay them for every time a potential client (website visitor) clicks on an ad you put up through Google. You also have the option to pay for impressions - that means everytime your ad loads on a page.
If you are thinking about using AdWords as part of your marketing campaign or are using them already Google works seamlessly in providing you with the answer to that all important questions, Is this ad working, am I making more money then I am spending? You can see if the visitor who clicked on the ad (you just paid for) bought something, or they clicked away from your website without purchasing the product you are selling.
You will be able to see where your visitors entered the site and where they leave it. When you sign up for Google and AdWords us the same account number (Google uses Gmail as the login and password) you can link both accounts together. AdWords will be imported into your Google Analytics Account. This provides you with a safety net so you can watch the behavior or you visitors and change what isn't working.
The development team at Google has a way of making their tools very usable and Google Analytics is just one of many tools that live up to these high standards.
I am amazed that everyone doesn't use this tool, if you need help in placing analytics on your pages email me or give me a call.
Pamela Jacob - Artista Design 801-910-4825
Providing Creative Solutions & Amazing Results
Good article. Just reminded me I need to put the "Google Analytics for WordPress" plugin in on my site.
ReplyDeleteWith it, I don't need to put any code on my site. The plugin does it.
The plugin is made by Joost de Valk. There are others but his looks to be the best one.
You might want to check it out if you do Wordpress sites for your clients.
Thanks Judith - great information.
ReplyDelete