Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a powerful tool used to analyze your web traffic – and like so many Google services, it’s completely free. Other tools used to analyze web traffic – such as Aw Stats – are free but not very powerful; still other tools are powerful, but not free. In other words, any business owner who has a website should be using Google Analytics.
The Google Analytics Dashboard
The Google Analytics dashboard itself provides an amazing amount of in-depth information about your website. At the top, you can view a line graph of how your website traffic has been doing over the past thirty days. Using the graph, you’ll be able to see if your new radio ad or television spot led to an increase in traffic, all in one quick glance.
Below the graph, you’ll find more detailed information about basic site statistics, including how many visits you’ve had in the last thirty days, how long visitors spent on the site on average, how many of your visitors were visiting for the first time, and what percentage of visitors left the site without interacting with it.
Underneath these figures are:
- Traffic Sources Overview: Shows what online and offline sources are sending you web traffic.
- Map Overlay: Shows where web visitors are arriving from geographically.
- Visitors Overview: Another graph, this time showing unique visits over thirty days.
- Content Overview: A chart showing the most popular pages on your site.
Knowledge is Power
Someone who knows how to decipher the statistics that Google Analytics provides about a website will have a much greater understanding as to how potential customers are reading and interacting with their site. This information, in turn, can help a webmaster to tweak the site to make it more effective, thus driving sales.
Your Three Choices
When it comes to using Google Analytics to improve your marketing efforts online and thus drive sales, you have three choices:
1. You could do nothing, while your competitors utilize Google Analytics to constantly improve the effectiveness of their online presence.
2. You could hire SMG to monitor your website using Google Analytics. Because SMG already has a team of Analytics experts at their disposal, they can easily understand the hieroglyph-like statistics Google provides and help you change your online marketing efforts accordingly.
3. You can learn how to use Google Analytics yourself by purchasing SMG’s eBook. The eBook will show you not only the basics of reading and interpreting Google Analytics, but also how this information should inform the rest of your online marketing strategy.
