Google Analytics: How It Works & Why We Use It
What Is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics can be thought of as a machine that collects and stores specific data from your website, giving you an in-depth understanding of the metrics of your site and how it’s being used. In the analytics platform, your website data is broken down into categories that provide a simplified viewing experience. When compared to going into the back end of your website to gather the information, Google Analytics feels like an all-encompassing tool to guide you to make precise decisions about the design of your website, how much content you provide, and whether you are receiving enough traffic. This platform is meant to help you have better access to the way your website is running even when you aren’t paying direct attention to it. When you install Google Analytics on your website, you are giving permission to Google to extract data about your website and store it all in one convenient place.
Why Does My Business Need It?
If you are trying to run a successful business, you have to be able to look at how people are interacting with your website and where you can make improvements to optimize their experience. The most important thing to keep in mind is that your website is like the front door of your business: you want people to feel welcomed, encouraged, and invested in the information that you are selling. Google Analytics is one of the best ways to understand how people behave once they enter the site. By engaging with these data metrics you are becoming more aware of the patterns that users are following on your website. Below are some of the tools offered on analytics that can provide deeper insights into user behavior:
Unique Users: how many new people visited your website
Pages Per Session: how many pages they visited in one website visit ● Average Time On Site: how much time they spent on your website
Goal Completions: how many goals were completed and tracked
Goal Conversion Rates: the sum of all individual goal conversion rates ● Traffic Channels: the various ways that people arrive at your website
Along with these principal metrics, the channels of website traffic that you receive are equally as important to understanding how your website functions. Below are some of the main channels that can be typically seen on the Analytics platform:
The Two Types: Universal Analytics & GA4
Google has two platforms that import and display website metrics. Universal Analytics is the older platform that has a straightforward display of the metrics and is based more on user sessions. Google Analytics 4 is the newer platform that has a more interactive user face and focuses more on events happening on the website. While both platforms can be used for basically the same purpose of data collecting, they both function differently. Google is asking all users that they begin using GA4 as soon as possible as Universal Analytics will no longer be serving on websites. Either type of analytics is crucial to have implemented on your website to begin collecting data and improve your overall business performance.
How Do I Use It With Ads?
When it comes to the connection between Google Ads and Analytics the link between the two is fundamental to ensuring that both your marketing efforts and your organic efforts are separate from one another. That is the key to keeping track of your return on investment from any Google Ads campaigns. One of the first questions you have to ask yourself is if people are spending time on your website and for how long. Because your ads will need landing pages, making sure that your website is ready to be at the forefront of your business is key to maintaining a successful ads campaign. Analytics will help to make better decisions regarding which pages need most attention or how many of those pages are being visited.
Creating goals to use as conversions is an important step when considering the link between Google Ads and Analytics. When you create a goal in Analytics, you are ultimately identifying that specific event on your website is a positive action. These goals - form submission, phone call, or scheduled appointment - can be tracked in Analytics and sent to the Google Ads platform. When viewing the difference between your organic website traffic and the paid search traffic you receive, you can rely on these goal completions to help make sense of how your website is performing in its various channels.
Find All The Data You Need
For first-time business owners, thinking about diving into the specifics of your website can feel overwhelming. With the amount of information available, it can be difficult combing through which data is significant to the success of your business. However, the use of Google Analytics is not meant to engulf you in site measurements that have no meaning. All of the information presented through analytics can be used as a stepping stool for optimizing the most triumphant areas of your website. Additionally, it can also help you to improve the areas of your website that may be forgotten or unchecked. Either way, analytics is a valuable tool that can help you reach new heights in your comprehension of how your website is performing and what you can do to improve.
