Google Analytics is a free service which allows you to analyse visitors to your website. You could have thousands of visitors to your firm’s website every month, but those visitors don’t mean much if you don’t know anything about them.
Google Analytics is one of the best of many tools available to analyse traffic to your website as it is designed to be easy to use and is free of charge. Used properly, it can help you to understand who is visiting your website and enable you to turn them into potential customers.
The system allows you to track everything from how much traffic your website is getting, to where that traffic is coming from, the behaviours of visitors, what they are clicking on, etc. In addition you can track mobile app traffic and identify trends to assist you in making decisions in relation to how you market your business.
To use Google Analytics you simply sign up for a free Google account, click on Google Analytics from your Google Account home page and go through the various steps. Then you must click on Get Tracking ID. You can install this tracking ID on your company’s website and this will allow you to monitor traffic and start using Google Analytics.
The Traffic Sources section allows you to analyse where the visitors to your website are coming from. You can also set up custom reports in order to monitor metrics based on data specific to your business. For example, if you are an online retailer, you can monitor product codes in order to track which products are being purchased by your online visitors who are based in the EU.
You can also connect Google Analytics to your firm’s social media accounts. This allows you to track the results of your social media marketing. For example, is the article you published on LinkedIn driving people to click through to your website, etc.
The old rule that you can only manage what you can measure definitely applies to your website. Why not give it a try, websites should be enhancing your business and with the information google analytics provides you can get a better return for your investment.
If you are not sure where to go next, we can put you in touch with a number of individuals who specialise in setting up the reports that tell you how your website is performing. Or attend the Accelerator Club and meet those who have benefitted from this resource.