So you have your website up and running, now what? Well, now you want to know about how your website is performing. Google Analytics is a must-have tool for anyone who wants a successful website. Here is only a small list of what it can do:
- Track how many people are visiting your website
- Where the visitors of your website are located geographically
- Which other websites are sending traffic to your site
- Which pages are the most popular on your website
- How to improve website speed
- Whether you need a mobile-friendly website or not
Getting Started
This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what Google Analytics can do for you. In general, the list above is the most important for most website owners. What does it cost to use Google Analytics? This is the best part: It is that it’s absolutely FREE to use. All you need is a Gmail account (which you probably already have) and the ability to install a tracking code on your website. Many website development kits (such as WordPress) may already have a way for you to do this. I recommend this article, “The Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Google Analytics” by Kristi Hines for a great beginners guide on getting started with Google Analytics.
Visualizing Data
Google Analytics makes viewing and understanding your data simple. It gives you a variety of ways to look at the information. It can present information in the form of pie charts, graphs, spreadsheets, and more. Because it allows you to make sense of the data in relation to your business goals, you can make better business decisions with confidence. Not only can you easily visualize your data, but you can import them to Microsoft Excel easily to keep records.
Complete Control
With Google Analytics, you have complete control over your information. If you are only interested in website traffic, you can create custom reports for just that page. You can easily view dates and times that you are getting the most traffic. You can even see how many people are viewing your site via mobile. This is useful if you decide whether you want your website to be optimized on mobile devices. You even can create goals for lead submissions, email sign-ups, and purchases and more.
Real-Time Reporting
Real-time reporting is useful for business campaigns to generate traffic on site. For example, if your business is having an online sale, you want to know if that sale is bringing in customers. If it isn’t bringing in enough traffic and sales as you’d like, you should reconsider what your price drop is, or what you have on sale. You can even set up custom alerts if you want to only be alerted to certain reports. If needed, you can also send out custom periodic reports via email to other members in your business or clients.
Conclusion
Google Analytics is a powerful free tool that you can use for your website, whether it’s a personal or business website. Of course, this is not a complete list of what you can do. However, I hope this helps give you some information on the importance of Google Analytics for your website. Contact us at 360 Web Designs to help you with your website design, SEO, Blog Writing, and Google Analytics. We are here to help!
