What does Google Analytics do? And what can I do with Google Analytics? (2023)

If you have done any researchTracking data on your website, You've probably heard of Google Analytics. But what exactly does Google Analytics do?

Google Analyticsis a free website analytics service from Google that gives you insightshow users find and use your website. With Google Analytics you can track the return on investment ("ROI") for your online marketing.

You can filter and sort your visitors using dozens of "dimensions" e.g. B. where they came from, which browser they use etc., and with "metrics" such as.

You can use Google products like your Ads account andsearch console. You can also use tracking codes to tag and track themadvertising,social, PR Campaignor anyArt Campaignon any platform/website.

All you have to do is install a small amount of "tracking code" with a unique tracking ID on every page of your website.*

*Installation varies by website software. If you useself-hosted WordPress, then you just paste it into your theme's header oruse a plugin. If you are using a hosted builder such asWix,Platz,Google Sites,The Popes,Weebly,Jimdo, orSitebuilder– then use the built-in embed option. Not all customization options are available for all platforms (ie.Wix vs. WordPress). You can also use Google Tag Manager to install not only the Google Analytics code but also other tags from Facebook, Twitter and other data sources.

*Just aside - all screenshots in this post are real to show real Google Analytics data in action. They come from several websites I own. The date ranges have each changed and I have blocked all sensitive data.

How does Google Analytics track data?

Google Analytics tracks all of its data through a unique tracking code that you install on every page of your website. This code is a small snippet of JavaScript, or programming language, that runs in viewers' browsers when they visit these pages.

The javascript code works with a larger javascript file on the Google server to collect information about the user's activity on the website. Each time they visit the website, the code tracks information about their visit. The code also places a cookie on each visitor's device (via IP address) that provides anonymous information to create user IDs.

To get more detailed information about the traffic source, you canUse UTM parameters. These are tags that you add to the end of your URL to provide Google Analytics with more information about your links, e.g. B. which campaign your content comes from and which social channel generates the most revenue.

Was misst Google Analytics?

The building blocks of Google Analytics reports areDimensionsandmetrics.

Dimensionsare the attributes of your data, such as For example, the city the traffic is coming from, the site you are measuring, or the social media channel you are evaluating.

metricsare the quantitative measurements for these dimensions. For example, if you were looking at how your ads are performing in Paris (the dimension), your metric would be 2,000 recorded paid sessions.

Metrics and dimensions make up every single report in Google Analytics.

What can you do with Google Analytics?

In short, Google Analytics helps you make marketing campaign decisions based on data. You can justify spending more on your advertising,Find out where to advertise, and even determine whattypes of contentYou must be out there.

Google Analytics categorizes data into theABCs:

• Aacquisition
• Bbehavior
• CThe version

Additionally, you can use it to break down your audience and real-time traffic. I'll break these down a bit more.

acquisition

Acquisition refers to how you get website traffic / website visitors. Simply put, you can use acquisition reports to see how your traffic is arriving on your website.

When you first look under "Acquisitions Report" in your Google Analytics dashboard, you'll notice that the "Overview" tab gives you a high-level view of acquisition, behavior, and conversion data for your top traffic sources by channel (recommended, direct, organic search, and social).

This gives you the most important data up front – the number of sessions recorded,the bounce rateof these won visitors and their conversions for your most effective channels. It offers a quick and easy way to see how your top channels are performing.

Acquisition reports are a great way to see which are the best ways to drive traffic to your website and take specific actions. Using other views you can look at different types of traffic.

Let's say you want to know which search engine is generating the most organic traffic. In the Source/Medium view, you can see down which individual sources and media have acquired the most customers (e.g. Google/Organic vs. Bing/Organic).

Or you can investigate which referral sources are responsible for driving the most referral traffic to your site by looking at Referral View. Use this information to make decisions about where to promote content. For example if you find thisDriving on PinterestTo bring a significant number of people to your site, work on publishing content there.

If you just want to look at social recommendations, check out the Social Networks tab. This only focuses on the social media traffic. Use this tab to discover the networks where people are interacting with your content. You can also see what content is performing best in each community. For example, you may find that your broader entertainment content performs better on Facebook, while your business-related content performs wellis LinkedIn.

The great thing about Google Analytics is the integration with other tools. The Acquisition section can be integrated into your Ads account so you can track how your campaigns are performing in terms of attracting customers.

Use the Ads section to see keyword performance and identify popular searches that drive traffic to your site. Use this information to create more targeted campaigns based on popular searches and topics people are searching for.

You can also integrate withsearch consoleto see how your landing pages are performing. Are certain pages great at bringing people to your site but way down the bottom of Google search results? Arespecific keywordsGetting them to show up in search results, but resulting in a below-average CTR? By integrating your Search Console data with Google Analytics, you can see all of this data andOptimize your website to increase click through rate.

Finally, you can use Campaign View to track visitors who came from campaigns that you set up yourselfUTM-Parameter. Keep in mind that these results apply to campaigns that you have structured using UTM codes - not your advertising campaigns, which are automatically synced.

behavior

The behavior reports are all about seeing what visitors are actually doing on your website. By using these user behavior reports, you can evaluate the performance of your website content and determine whether your visitors are taking the desired actions.

When you access the Behavior tab for the first time, you'll see an overview again. This view gives you a chart showing the amount of traffic your website received during the period under review.

You'll also see page views, unique page views, average time on page, bounce rate metrics, and exit percentage metrics. All of these metrics describe how a user interacted with your page. Here are some brief definitions:

• Page Views: Total number of pages viewed.
• Unique Pageviews: Number of unique people who viewed a specific page at least once during a visit.
• Average time on page: The average time users spend looking at a page.
• Bounce Rate: The percentage of visits to a single page. (For aFor an in-depth lesson on bounce rate and how to use it, click here.)
• Percent Abandonment: Percentage of users who abandon a page or set of pages

After the Overview tab is the Behavior Flow view. This shows the path visitors typically take when visiting your website, from entering to exiting. Use this to see where people tend to get on and off.

understand page content

Next is the Website Content section, which reports on how visitors interact with different pages (or pieces of content) on your website. Google Analytics breaks this down into a few different reports: All Pages, Content Drilldown, Landing Pages, and Exit Pages.

The All Pages report shows your site's top pages based solely on traffic. Use this to see what content is performing best on your site.

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The Content Drilldown report can be used for the areas of your website with folders like /blog and /news. This report shows you the top-level folders of content on your site and the top-level items within those folders. Simply "drill down" into the folders to see individual performance. This gives you a more holistic view of how different content areas are performing on your site.

The Landing Pages report shows you the top landing pages that your visitors use to reach your website. This report shows you conversions based on your goals, so you can see which pages convert the most people. Use this information to optimize your campaigns and drive more traffic to the pages with higher conversion rates.

Exit pages are about where people leave your website. You should use this data to see where you drop the ball. Check out these pages to see if you're missing an opportunity to send users elsewhere on your site.

Understand website speed

The next section of the Behavior tab is about website speed – this is directly about load time. Use this section to determine which areas of your site may need changesoptimize due to their slow loading speed.

The Overview tab gives you a snapshot of the average load time of all pages on your website. This is also broken down by browser. Here are a few definitions you need to know (note that all times are in seconds):

• Average Page Load Time: The average time it takes to load pages
• Average Redirect Time: The average time spent redirecting before a page is fetched
• Average Domain Lookup Time: The average time spent doing DNS lookups for a page
• Average server connection time: The average time spent establishing a TCP connection for a page
• Average Server Response Time: The average time it takes your server to respond to a user request (an important factor forhosting company)
• Average Page Download Time: The average time it takes to download a page

The Page Timings report shows you how long your most visited pages take to load compared to the total load time of your website. Use this to determine which pages you need to optimize based on their slow loading speed.

To optimize the slower pages,Check out my guide to improving website speed.

Next, you'll see the Speed ​​Suggestions report, which gives you advice from Google on how to optimize specific pages on your site. It also gives you detailed information for each page!

Don't get bogged down here — start with the top-traffic pages. Those are the ones that really matter.

Last is user timings. This feature requires special code on your website (in addition to the regular Google Analytics tracking code). If you decide to continue using this feature, you can see how quickly certain elements on a page load - like a video. From there you can see if it is affecting the user experience.

Understand Site Search

Another feature of the behavior reports is site search, which shows how people are using your site's search function.

The Overview tab shows you general metrics for visitors who use the search box on your site. You can also see the search terms they used and the page they landed on. Use this information to find keywords to use in Google Ads.

The usage report shows the number of visits that used the search box versus those that didn't. This allows you to see if your search box is improving metrics like bounce rate and conversions.

The Search Terms view provides detailed information about the search terms that users are using on your site, such as: B. how many times this term was used, the number of pages this term triggers and the percentage of search exits and refinements. You can use this data to determine how easy it is to find information on your website and what information people are looking for - then you can create ads that take users directly there.

Finally, there is the Pages report. This is a copy of the Search Terms report, but instead of focusing on the term, it focuses on the pages that the searches originated from.

understand the events

Events are used to track specific interactions on your website, such as B. Clicks on external links, video playback, resource downloads, etc.

This departmentrequires a special tracking codeto work. If you use oneWordPress plugin like MonsterInsights, then it works automatically.

The summary report shows a summary of the interactions you're tracking. These are tracked based on the event tracking code you set up. So if you're tracking newsletter signups and video plays, that information will appear here.

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The Top Events report looks at the events with the most engagement. Suppose you have multiple video downloads. Use this section to see which video is downloaded the most. This can tell you what your audience is most interested in - then you can create more of that type of content.

The Pages report under Events shows you the top pages where visitors are interacting with your events. So when you're working with multiple pages of assets, you'll not only see which events are performing best, but also which pages are getting the most event traction. This can help you optimize your pages and focus your efforts (and events!) more on the pages that are performing well.

Next, you'll see the event flow report, which shows the path visitors take when they interact with your event. You can see where people are arriving and where they are getting off.

Finally, there are experiments. Google lets you run experiments like A/B testing to see which landing page works best for your specific goals. If you want to optimize these goals, you should use tests to see which pages are performing best and which pages need adjustment.

conversions

The Conversions section of Google Analytics is all about understanding how people convert on your website, which is essential to improving your conversion rate.

Conversion reports are divided into four sections: Goals, Commerce, Multi-Channel Funnels, and Attribution. Let's look at what these mean.

understand goals

The Goals section, like the other sections, begins with an Overview tab. In the overview you can see a short summary of the number of target conversions on your website, i.e. H. the total number of conversions.

Here it is important to note that in order to be successful, you should set good goals. For example, if you run an e-commerce business, you'd rather track purchases than filled shopping carts, right? That's a more reasonable picture of how many people actually converted. Make sure you set yourself up for victory by setting specific (and accurate) goals.

Next is the Destination URLs report, which shows the URLs where people are actually converting. The primary view is just the actual goal completion page (i.e. thethank you pageafter registration). To see the page that leads to this conclusion, use the secondary dimension drop-down menu to show Goal Previous Step -1.

The Reverse Destination Path report works similar to the Destination URL report, but shows you the previous three steps to completing the destination. Use this to see the paths people take to convert and how many steps it takes someone to reach that conversion stage.

Next, look at funnel visualizations. This only works if you set up the goal to track multiple steps in the conversion process. Essentially, what you will see is the typical path of the conversion, as well as the places where people drop out during the process. This can help you find roadblocks to conversions — like a complicated checkout process or a broken cart page.

You can also use the Target Flow Visualization report in the same way.

Understand the eCommerce space

Next up under Conversions is the Ecommerce section, which is specifically for businesses that sell products on their website.

In the summary report, you can see your ecommerce conversion rate, average order value, unique purchases, and even the quantity of products sold.

There are also some detailed reports here. The Product Performance Report shows how yourindividual productsperform. Use this to see which products are great and which aren't. Pay attention to trends in seasonality and price.

You can also look at the total sales you've made using the sales performance report. This breaks down your sales performance on a daily basis.

Next you will see the transaction report, which shows income, taxes,shipping , and the quantity of items purchased for each transaction made during the period you're measuring.

Last but not least, you have time to purchase, which shows the time it takes for a visitor to purchase an item after arriving on your website. Use this data to see if there are anyhurdles in the buying process.

Understand the Multi-Channel Funnels section

Use multi-channel funnels to get a complete view of a customer's journey on your website. Rather than attributing the conversion to the last recommendation like Google does, this section helps you see other actions a user is taking that help them convert - such as: B. reading a blog post, downloading a guide, or signing up for a newsletter.

The Overview report shows a summary of all marketing channels that help drive conversions on your website. Use this to see which channels are contributing more conversion traffic. If it's social, you might want to focus more of your efforts on it (instead of getting paid).

Next comes the Assisted Conversions section - this shows the number of conversions that a channel has indirectly influenced. For example, your blog might have 50 supported conversions. It wasn't the last touch, but 50 of the 100 visits to your blog resulted in a subsequent conversion.

If you want to see which paths conversions take, use the Top Conversion Paths report. This shows the most typical paths to conversion that users take. For example, you may find that most of your users find you through organic search and then return directly to your site to purchase a product from you.

If you want to see how long it takes for someone to convert, check out the time lag report. This shows you how long (in days) it takes for visitors to convert after their first visit to your website. Use this data to optimize your conversion process.

Similar to the time delay, the page length report shows the number of times a visitor interacts with your website before converting.

Understanding the Attribution Section

The attribution section of Google Analytics has only one report: the model comparison tool. You can use this to understand the difference in conversions when you change attribution. Let's say you believe that an ad that was a user's first touch point should get the conversion. You can see how your conversion numbers change if you change the attribution of the conversion to that first interaction.

This allows you to see how different marketing channels affect your overall conversions, e.g. B. Paid advertising, email and content marketing.

Audience

You can learn more about who is driving your website traffic in the "Audience" section of Google Analytics. This section emphasizes demographics and attributes associated with your traffic. Most of the reports are self-explanatory, but the mobile and geographic reports are probably the most useful.

realtime

With this report you can see who is on your website and what they are doingReal time. If you're running a sale, are in the media or just want to see how the site is performing in real time, then you've come to the right place.

Troubleshooting with Google Analytics

Ultimately, Google Analytics is truly a problem-solving tool — it's not the ultimate answer. Data overload is a very real thing, so don't give in to analysis paralysis. Instead, use good problem-solving techniques.

First and foremost, don't enter your Google Analytics account to look for a solution. You want to look for problems. Is the page speed too slow? Do customers drop off at a certain point on the website? These are all problems that you can identify using Google Analytics. Only then can you delve into the root cause of the problem and how to fix it.

Second, Google Analytics is a tool that can go wrong. It's important to understand whereGoogle Analytics spam comes from& What do you think. It's also useful to understandhow to sort unimportant information (or just wrong information).from your point of view so you can see what is important.

Next Steps

Now that you know how Google Analytics works, it's time to dive in. Use these next steps to get started:

• Make sure Google Analytics is implemented correctly. You can use Google Tag Assistant to check this. If you use WordPress,Use an analytics pluginto do it properly. Be sure to carefully review each Google Analytics setting.
• If you have a question or a problem with your website, outline the dimension and metric that shows that problem or answers the question. For example, if you're wondering if people are finding a particular page through organic search, you should look at the organic traffic (that is, channels and page views) to that page.
• Once you have the question/problem, dive further into analytics to find the root cause. If you find that people aren't finding your page through organic search, see if you can use the data to find out why.

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