Are You Using Google Analytics? You Should.

If you’re not using Google Analytics with your website, it’s like firing a gun with your eyes closed.

Well, no one stands a chance of losing life or limb without Google Analytics, but you have no idea if you hit what you were aiming for. Google Analytics helps you gauge how effective your website is and if you’re hitting your target.

Google Analytics is a free service from Google that provides detailed information about visitors to your website.  While other web analytic programs are available, this is the most widely used and there is a lot of great information on the Internet to help answer any questions about getting an account set up, using the tools, and reading the reports.

Now, this probably seems obvious, but in the chance, it’s not; using analytics means you actually have to use them. Kudos to you if you have the tools installed for your website; shame on you if you’re not actually looking at the reports and using the tools. The good news? If you’ve got Google Analytics installed but you’ve been ignoring it, Google hasn’t been ignoring you, and has been tracking tons of great information for you.

Google Analytics provides insight on:

• The number of visitors your site gets and how many of those visitors are new versus repeat visitors.
• Where your visitors are coming from geographically, down to the city.
• How engaged your visitors are with your website based on the number of pages they view, how long they stay on the site and whether they use your site search.
• Where are your visitors finding you – are they coming directly to your site by typing in your URL or are they coming from a search or via social media?
• What page is getting the most attention on the site by your visitors?
• And more…this is just the tip of the iceberg!

Get Started

If you don’t have Google analytics installed, hop to it! Check out this great checklist to get you started. If you do have Google Analytics installed but you haven’t been so faithful about reading the reports, schedule 30 minutes, for yourself, to review the reports at least once a month. If you’re not sure what the reports are telling you, check back to our blog for future tips or email me at kelli@productionmonkeys.com and I’d be happy to review your site’s analytics to help you understand how effectively your website is attracting engaged visitors.