The Benefits of Google Analytics: How to improve your business and understand your customers with Google Analytics

 
Congratulations, you’ve done it! Your professional website is up and running, and the business you’ve long dreamt of is now a reality. Time to pop the champagne, right? Not so fast! In today’s highly competitive online business world, having a great business idea and a world-class website is only half the battle. Keeping up with what’s working, what’s not, who’s coming and who’s leaving your site is crucial to the success of your business. So if you haven’t already, it’s time to get familiar with Google Analytics.
 

What is Google Analytics?

 
Google Analytics is a free online tracking tool provided by Google, and it offers multiple ways to monitor how visitors are using your website, providing insights such as:

• Realtime Report – the number of users on your site right now, and how they are interacting with your site.
• Audience Report – the age of each visitor, what kind of device they are using, and where they are located.
• Acquisition Report – how visitors are arriving at your site, i.e. through an “organic” search on a search engine like Google, via your social media accounts or your ads, or from a different website, etc.
• Behavior Report – what your visitors are doing on your site, including the number of pages they view, which pages lead to which others pages, the average time spent on the site, the percentage of users who leave a page without interacting, and how often visitors “bounce”, i.e. view only one page and then leave.
• Conversion Report – how many activities visitors complete on your site, including things like making a purchase, subscribing to your newsletter, viewing a video, etc.

Why you should be using it

 
Like we said earlier, having a great website is all well and good, but the mark of true success is your ability to keep audiences engaged and coming back for more — to lean into the things that are working well, and change the things that aren’t. And without good data, you’ll never know how to improve. Google Analytics provides extensive, real-time data in a straightforward format (we’re big fans of the colorful pie charts) so you can fine tune your business to suit your users’ demographics, behaviors, and tastes. Need more reasons to start using this great tool? We’ve got plenty.
 

1. 1 – It’s free

That’s right – one of the most sophisticated and elegant data tracking tools on the internet is available to you completely free of charge. For the value that it will provide your business, it’s one of the best bargains you can make.

 

2. 2 – Get to know your visitors, maximize your reach

Who’s visiting your website? Gen Z’ers on iPhones? Baby Boomers on desktops? Guys, gals, non-binary pals? All these demographics are likely to want slightly different things from your business. Knowing who is visiting, and on which devices, will help you better tailor your site and your messaging to their needs. Google Analytics can even provide you information on the various interests of your visitors, allowing you to serve niche groups within your target audience.
 

3. 3 – Learn about your website’s channels

How did your visitors get to your website? From a Google search? A business directory? A Facebook ad? Did they go directly to your site without searching? Google Analytics will let you know how your visitors are finding their way to your site, so you can better focus on channels that are bringing in the most traffic, or maybe change your strategy for the channels that aren’t performing as well.
 

4. 4 – What are your visitors doing?

Once they’ve reached your site, it’s important to know what your visitors are doing on it. Google Analytics can tell you how your visitors are behaving – the paths they are taking, which pages they spend the most time on, which pages lead to conversion, where and when they tend to exit your site. This helps you design a site that harmonizes with the actions your visitors are taking, and can also help you fix any areas where engagement is falling flat.
 

5. 5 – Manage your business in real-time

Google Analytics can provide you with information about traffic, channels and engagement in real-time, allowing you to measure trends across whatever time frame best suits your needs, be it daily, quarterly, or yearly. This function can help you interpret how traffic changes in response to particular campaigns, and to know when peak engagement times are for your audience, helping you coordinate your blog posts or other content updates for maximum impact.

 

A Real Game Changer

 
So now you understand just how powerful Google Analytics can be for your business. More than just a neat-looking widget, Google Analytics is an indispensable tool for leveling up your website and having a more engaged, successful business – and did we mention it’s free? It’s free! So what are you waiting for?

Get in touch with Millennial Web Development to learn about how you can sign up and activate Google Analytics today. We’ll get you up and running in no time.