Analytics don’t have to be confusing
According to Shopify, 63% of companies online aren’t using analytics tools to track their webpage traffic, visitor behavior, and conversion data. This is staggering! Analytics are not simply install-and-go; there is a human element needed for installation and usage. Installing analytic tools is amazingly simple and important before considering SEO, SEM, Adwords or any digital marketing campaign. The internet makes data-driven marketing decision easier than ever. This blog will explore one main tool in the industry – Google Analytics – how to install it and do some basic functions with it. There are many more tools one could use, but we will focus on Google Analytics now because of how often it is used.
Installation
We regularly engage clients who don’t have any analytics setup on their webpage and are looking for SEO work. Getting this installed quickly is vital so at the very least, we can get some baseline values for visitors, user experience, conversions, etc. It’s really easy to install:
- Go to analytics.google.com
- Sign up for an account, go through the self-explanatory steps
- You will be given an number that starts with “UA-”. This number is important! It can be used with different WordPress plugins for installation on your page. If you are using Divi, you can take the tracking code and put it in the integrations tab. And as always, you can install the code directly on your site via FTP.
Usage
Google Analytics can be a bit intimidating at first but the setup is quite logical. There are standard reports you can pull to examine your audience, traffic source, user behavior on your site, and conversions. We recommend looking at setting goals in order to get a better idea and closer look of your conversion efforts. You can play with segments to to filter data and display specifics of what you are looking for. And you can change date ranges to see if your marketing efforts for promotions, social media efforts, or other business hustle is making a difference on your traffic. This seems like quite a bit but to sort through; there are lots of guides on Google and other places online that can help you.
What’s next?
Now that you have an understanding of Google Analytics, you can begin to look at what you can do with this information. It does take time for business owners to learn how to use this system but over time, it can be learned. If you want to let the experts take care of this, let us know! We have a team assembled who focus specifically for anayltics, SEO, SEM and Google AdWords. Ask us for a quote today!
