Introduction
There is one extremely important thing that can really make or break the success of any website, but a lot of webmasters are underutilizing it – or worse, aren’t using it at all. That is analytics.
Specifically, Google Analytics.
What makes Google Analytics so great? Well, not only is it a great way to monitor how much traffic your site is getting and where it’s coming from, but if you use it properly you can glean a wealth of other information including your bounce rate, most popular pages or articles, and even your conversion rates! The trouble is, it can be confusing. There are tons of features that seem hopelessly hidden amongst a wide variety of options, and the majority of people don’t even know they’re there, much less how to use them.
In this guide, you’re going to learn about some of the most important features of Google Analytics, and how you can use those features to improve your traffic, conversions and more! So let’s get started, shall we? Google Analytics 101 Installing Analytics The first thing you need to do is get a Google Analytics account.
You can use an existing Google account.
Just sign in and press “Sign up” you’re ready to start using Google Analytics. Next, you’ll need to add a site to Analytics.
Analytics with WordPress If you’re using WordPress, and a great number of sites are these days,
you can use a nifty little plugin to make it easier to install Analytics on your pages.
This is especially helpful if your theme doesn’t already have a specific place to add your Analytics code. Some do.
Google Analytics 101 If your theme doesn’t, you might want to check out the Analytics by toast plugin.
The Five Report Suites There are five report suites inside Google Analytics that will each offer you different types of information.
These five different report times include:
• Real Time
• Audience
• Acquisition
• Behavior
• Conversion
This plugin will connect to your Analytics account and let you choose which site you want to track, and will then automatically add your Analytics code to all of your posts and pages.
Some sites may not use all of these reports. For example, if you’re not selling anything, you may not need to use the conversion suite.
However, it’s still useful for tracking conversion to your email list and such.
Real-Time:
Real-time reports let you know what is happening with your site right now. You can find out what is happening on your website at the moment you’re viewing the report. This will give you live information about how much traffic you’re getting and what pages people are currently viewing.
Audience :
The audience reports give you information about the people visiting your site. They let you know their demographics such as age and gender, their interests, where they are located, what type of devices and browser they use, etc.
Acquisition :
Acquisition reports tell you where your traffic is coming from. It gives you information such as keywords used to find you and links they came from. This will help you determine which are your most effective keywords and marketing channels.
Behavior :
The behavior reports let you know information such as which pages people are viewing, where they go, how fast your pages load, etc. This will tell you which articles are most popular, and what you could do to make people enjoy your content more.
Conversions:
The conversion reports will let you know how effective your site is at making sales or getting email signups or getting users to take whatever other action you’d like them to take.
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