Ask the Right Questions and Get The Most From Google Analytics
Google Analytics is arguably one of the company’s most beneficial tools (and they have many) for Internet marketers. Yet the majority of users hardly scratch the surface when it comes to exploring the true functionality of the tool. It seems that many are just put off by its apparent complexity. This is a great shame as you do not need to be a logistician, data technician or a Google insider to reap great benefits from the information contained therein.
Google Analytics can seem to be quite daunting at first glance, but if you spend an hour or so just surfing around within the site it will start to make sense. Google makes it relatively easy to implement the necessary tracking code on your site and they have a number of question and answer resources available to help you ensure that it is all set up correctly. If you have a number of different sites, it is worth taking time to ensure that you set up your accounts well in the first instance, as this will certainly help you navigate down the road.
Many people seem to struggle to come to terms with what Google Analytics is really trying to tell them. You can get as much information out of this program as you could ever want, but don’t burden yourself with trying to analyze every conceivable area. Rather, focus on what is really important to you.
You can set up a number of goals and events, enabling you to follow what happens according to triggers that you set up on your website or elsewhere. If you have an ad campaign or article marketing campaign you will hopefully have distinct landing pages within your site, enabling you to categorize visitor arrival points. You need to be able to see what happens when visitors arrive at those pages, where they went from there or whether they moved through your shopping cart to your payment pages, for example. If you notice that they do not go anywhere else once they arrive at your landing page, but just leave, a phenomenon also known as a high bounce rate, then you need to consider whether the content of your landing page is truly appropriate to the trigger that sent them there in the first place.
The program will allow you to break down your visitors according to their geographic source, of great interest to you if you are geo-targeting your campaigns. You can see which keywords are being used most by visitors who arrive at your site, enabling you to create marketing campaigns accordingly.
Google Analytics should be your friend and not something to be scared of. You owe it to yourself to educate and use this remarkable and free intelligence to your benefit.
How do you get the most from Google Analytics?
Adam Toren