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Beginner’s Guide to Google Analytics

SEO would be near impossible without access to site performance and traffic data. The free software that most search optimizers use is Google Analytics, a tool designed for analyzing all aspects of site performance. Google Analytics offers a ton a of important for any website owner or manager, so in our beginner’s guide to Google Analytics, we touch up on the highlights that it has to offer.

Offered up as a free software by the geniuses at Google, the best thing about Analytics is that you can isolate and solve key user experience issues – like site speed on mobile or bounce rate on a specific page – without having to conduct major site audits.

The data is all there for you as long as you know how to find it and interpret it!

This post is for those who have little to no experience with Google Analytics but want to start incorporating it into their site maintenance strategy. In our beginner’s guide to Google Analytics, we touch upon some of the many highlights of using Google Analytics.

How to Use Google Analytics in My Website

To install Google Analytics on your site you will need two things: access to the internet, and basic knowledge of HTML. If you would rather leave the HTML to your company’s webmaster or freelancer, that is an option too, but we promise it’s very easy!

To install the program, you first need to:

● Sign up for Google Analytics at Google’s Analytics Solution hub page.

● Make sure to link your most frequently used email, and one you plan to use for a long time. Just make sure you remain the only admin on the account.

● Begin on the New Account page by filling in the URL of your business, the industry it’s in, and the time zone you operate from (this helps with updates and tracking status reports)

● Read through the privacy report below the sign-up sheet and make sure everything jives with you.

Start Interpreting Performance Data

Now, you should have a fully functional account with tracking codes installed on every page. It should take a day or so for your site to sync up with Analytics, but before you know it, data will start flowing to it. Below is a snapshot of all the different metrics you can measure:

There are a total of five reporting categories, each with their sub-set of categories describing search session history. A few of the highlights include:

● Real-time users. You can track the real-time movements of people on your site to see if your tracking code is set up on all pages, if your one-day promotion is having the desired impact on search behavior, and get a clear idea where most of your traffic is coming from.

● Popular landing pages. In the ‘Acquisition’ category you can explore which landing pages on your site are most effective, and where the majority of this traffic comes from (social media or Google search).

Create Goals in Google Analytics

Collecting data is not all Analytics can do. You can set specific goals pertinent to your business needs.

A goal is defined by Google as “a page which a visitor reaches once they have completed an action”. It’s for this reason they are often referred to as conversions, or things like signing up for a newsletter or spend quality viewing time on a landing page you have optimized. It’s worth taking some time to explore your site traffic before designing a Funnel Path with key Entry Points based on your desired goal.

How to Read the Audience Overview Report

Lastly, it’s important to familiarize yourself with an Audience Overview Report. On the homepage, below ‘Customization’, you can select from nine different reports detailing customer behavior on the site. These are the bread and butter of GA and show you what is working and what is not with your Goals and overall web management strategy.

Start Understanding Your Website Traffic Today

At SeoHighLighter, we have mastered the understanding of Google Analytics, because we want to help your business grow. Our beginner’s guide to Google Analytics scratches the surface of what is available in GA.