To begin learning about Google Analytics, we must start by defining it.
Google Analytics is a web tracking service offered by Google, which allows website owners, to track consumer behaviour within websites/e-commerce sites, spanning from acquisition, behaviour and conversion.
Usually in typical offline business interactions this consumer behaviour is difficult to measure, however moving onto the online word, services like Google Analytics allows us to gather meaningful statistics across our websites.
These types of statistics are essential for any business, regardless of their size, as it allows them to:
Better align their marketing strategies towards their audience's interests.
Understand consumer browsing/shopping behaviour.
Assist with understanding traffic flow sources thus improving future leads.
Furthers your overall understanding of website traffic flow and how different areas of your websites perform.
In order to utilise Google Analytics, you have to incorporate a small tracking code to each page of your site, allowing Google Analytics to collect valuable information within your site, which in turn allows for the creation of reports through the Google Analytics interface, which allows users to sum all their valuable information in a simple, relatively easy to use UI.
Once the tracking tag has been attached to your site, you can view your data throughout the UI, using filters to show different views, allowing you to truly isolate different types of consumers or traffic, further bettering your ability to improve your site!
Furthermore, Google Analytics allows you to view data in reports, which allows you to visually identify different types of trends occurring within your site, allowing you to capitalise on trends you may not have been aware of initially, or just those you didn't expect to be so prominent!
There are 3 types of report categories you can analyse, all of which display different types of information:
Audience Reports
Audience Reports help you to better understand consumer characteristics. Things like, Active Users Reports, Demographics and Interest Reports, Geographic Reports and more are all available under the Audience Report section of Google Analytics, which can assist you in your own site, by allowing you to better understand your target market!
Acquisition Reports
Acquisition Reports will let you analyse the performance of your different channels of marketing, and assist you in figuring out what types of traffic is generated from your different channels. This will massively assist you, especially when first beginning your site, in figuring out what types of leads generate the most traffic, and hence creates the ability to adapt your marketing strategy accordingly!
Google Analytics also takes these reports a step further by identifying consumer behaviour once they've landed on your site, categorising traffic as "high quality" for example, illustrating the difference in consumer engagement within your site!
Behaviour Reports
And finally, Google Analytics can display behaviour reports, which as the name suggest are a category of reports, which illustrate consumer behaviours in your site, from consumer engagement with certain content, average time on pages, and even bounce rates!
Content Drill-down is a tool within behaviour reports which illustrates which parts of your website has the best consumer engagement, while tools like Landing Pages and Exit Pages reports, allows you to identify which pages are more likely to have consumers visiting, and which sees traffic leaving. This is all vital information, in further tailoring your site towards your desired target market!
So what are you waiting for! Get started with Google Analytics and finally get to understand your own business better.
Further training exists online, with Google's very own Google Analytics training. Don't hesitate to try it yourself! https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/
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