Analyzing Google Analytics

Be honest. You see the benefits of tracking the results of your online marketing efforts, but do you fully tap into this resource? Maybe it’s a matter of no time. Or limited staff. Or lack of knowledge.

Google Analytics can help. Find someone who has achieved this certification (yes, we have it), or have someone on your team go through the certification process. It’s worth the effort.

For one, it will help ensure you’re tracking what’s important. Remember how overused visit-counters used to be? Google Analytics will help you quickly see that measuring “hits” alone means little. Analytics let you see what search keywords people use to find your site, how much time they spend on it, what pages they view most, and pages where they tend to exit.

Solving the Problem Starts With Identifying It

Let’s say your company sells aircraft paint liveries and that you recently launched a website that enjoys heavy traffic, but has generated no increase in sales. With Google Analytics, you can track visitors and bounce rates (the percentage of people who only view one page before exiting).

In this hypothetical case, analytics enable you to see that most of your traffic is coming from the search term “paint jobs” and for all users who hit your site from that search-term there is a 90% bounce rate. This means that the vast majority of people finding your site are probably there by mistake. Aircraft-specific paint jobs are of no interest to them. Using this information, you can refine your search-engine optimization (SEO) to make your services clearer – so the people attracted to your site are actually looking for what you provide. You can study the 10% who are finding your site and apply your marketing efforts – Google AdWords, compelling content, special events, promotions, etc. – to finding more like them.

You can use analytics to uncover emerging trends and markets. Reviewing how many users visited your site from specific cities around the world, you can see if particular regions rank higher in searches for “aircraft paint jobs.” If so, advertising in those areas could prove beneficial. You know the interest is there.

Knowledge You Can Act On

Google Analytics provide strategic metrics that can help you finely target your efforts and develop insights that take your marketing from good to great. With this knowledge, you can optimize your website to keep people engaged – and plug the holes where you lose them.