google analytics

If you are not measuring your performance, then how do you know what’s working and what’s not?

There are so many ways to measure your website’s performance. And without a doubt, the most popular analytics platform is Google Analytics.

But like many people, you may find it a bit overwhelming to begin with. Or, you may be struggling to find the right data. Or perhaps you just want to move to the next level and really make the most out of it?

There’s nothing with wrong with feeling like that. That’s how I felt when I first stepped into Google Analytics… and it was scary.

But with the right information and guidance, you will find your way around it. And this post will help you with that, as I put together a roundup of a beginner’s guide to Google Analytics for your business.

How are you currently tracking your website’s online goals?

Sure, you can look at the number of sessions, bounce rate and your most popular landing pages via Google Analytics. But let’s face it, they should not be your main goals.

And if that applies to you, then you are missing out on important data such as conversion rate.

They are the important data that will define your business, so if you have not set up Google Analytics goals or you don’t know if you have done it correctly, you need to read this post.

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[Read more…] about How to Set Up Google Analytics Goals & Track Conversions?

Aside from looking at increasing the number of sessions (and hopefully conversions), another popular goal for many site owners is to look at how to reduce bounce rate.

For some, it’s potentially the most important metric to monitor on Google Analytics.

Whilst I disagree on the huge focus on bounce rate, I do agree that we should look at how to reduce it to encourage more activities and engagement on your site.

For all the overwhelming amount of data that Google Analytics can provide for you, you could argue that you don’t need anything more than what you have already got.

But I’m afraid there is more to GA than just looking at sessions, landing pages and sources of traffic.

That’s OK though, because it’s time to unlock another way to extract even more useful data about your website.

Have you wondered how you can get specific and customised data that suits you instead of using the GA’s default version?

Well you can do that with “Regular Expressions”, which is also known as “RegEx”.

One of the most common metrics that we all spend a lot of time looking at on Google Analytics is the glorious “bounce rate”.

I’m not sure why, of all the metrics, bounce rate gets the most attention, potentially after the number of sessions and pageviews on Google Analytics.

Especially when there is also another mystery-related metric called “exit rate” which can also offer valuable insights, and potentially more important insights into your website’s performance than bounce rate.

“Did the dip in traffic happen because the site went down?”

“Can you remember when that sales promotion launched?”

“When did we launch the new site?”

“Who made the changes to the new checkout page?”

These are just some of the questions that could be asked by anyone who has a website.

It’s all well and good having analytics that can monitor various metrics. But what if you want to know an answer to the questions above with ease via analytics?

Instead of digging through your paperwork, sending out emails to the department and making phone calls to your client, you can prevent the wild goose chase from happening by making use of annotations in Google Analytics.

Even though it’s a small feature, it’s an important feature that just about all site owners with analytics data should use.

[Read more…] about Google Analytics Annotations: What is it, Why Should I Use it & How to Use it?

When people talk about web analytics tools that can track and report data about your website, the industry standard is without doubt Google Analytics (GA).

At the time of writing, it is used in 76% of all websites on the world wide web.

Many of us have implemented GA straight “out of the box”, meaning that we just added the code onto the site or got it started with the help of a WordPress plugin, and that’s it.

It can be a very simple way to start watching your sessions and other metrics add up over time, which can give you that warm and fuzzy feeling.