The e-commerce marketplace is favourable to business owners who take the time to understand their website traffic. It’s a case of trial, error and learn. Google Analytics is a free website data analysis tool that provides valuable data, allowing you to make informed decisions on how you should adjust your online marketing strategy. Trends and behaviour patterns are insightful data you should be analysing, it goes beyond checking popular news sites, your website content needs to address the needs of the visitor and Google Analytics is the right place to start.
If you are a website owner Google Analytics will allow you to answer:
- Where does your traffic come from?
- Did the visitor stay or bounce?
- Did they find what they were looking for?
Acquisition – Where did the traffic come from?
Once a campaign is in motion, traffic to your is website is bound to increase and having a tool like Google Analytics allows you to identify, top marketing channels, the amount of existing and new users you received and gives you an overview of the total sessions you received. These numbers will allow you to identify if your campaign is working or not, Craig highlights that your website is not a guessing game. Google Analytics will ease your reporting too, easily export data into an excel sheet and share your insights with the rest of your team.
Behaviour – Once visitors get to your website, what are they doing?
It is important to look at your users experience, each one might have a different intention and the journey to achieve their outcome needs to flow easily. Google Analytics points out, the amount of views your pages receives, unique pageviews, the average time a user spends browsing on your site, gives you an overview of your bounce rate and will allow you to see how quickly people are exiting your website. When you start to look at the numbers regarding the above points, you will begin to identify peoples behaviour flow and if they are enjoying their experience on your website.
Conversion – Did the visitor take the action you wanted them to?
This data tool will allow you to track campaign goals accurately. Are you intending for the user to make a purchase on your site or land on your blog? Google Analytics proves an overview of the exact URLs people visited, the action they took on that page and the value your business gained from their action.
Google Analytics -The Interface
At a glance the interface might be daunting for a non-IT professional. You’re in luck, to create an interface suited to your needs head over to the Customization tab listed in Google Analytics. Create custom dashboards, alerts and reports that you can save and review daily.
Google Analytics – The Setup
Visit google.com/analytics, sign up and get started. Browse to the admin tab located in the bottom left corner of your page. Follow these three steps to plugin Google Analytics:
1. Create your account
Enter the name of your business account you would like to track.
2. Select the property you want to measure
Measure your website or mobile app’s data.
3. Property setup
Enter the details of your chosen property and create your Google Analytics account.
