Want to know what it is Google Analytics and the importance that has for a company?
Are you wondering how to use Google Analytics in your day-to-day to save you time and be able to better measure your results?
Well, once you're already using the 5 best seo tools we propose in this previous post, and you already know how to optimize your website by using search by voicebe prepared to read this article:
In this article we are going to speak about the importance of using this tool to extract the advantages and overcome the disadvantages that Google Analytics can bring to your company, web or digital project.
"What is not measured, cannot be improved"
Little is imagined, William Thomson Kelvin, that this phrase would be key to defining the Online Marketing in the XXI century. But so it is: the Internet is a sector worth billions of euros a year, and where the interaction between users and companies generates unimaginable quantities of information ready for analysis. All these data generate what is known as Big Data, and it is not by chance that it is the trendy term between small and large corporations.
To establish a little order in this immense chaos of data, it is essential to have tools for monitoring and measuring (tracking). And it is, to some extent, around what's going to treat the article. important to know what is Google Analytics and how to use it in our day-to-day.
What is Google Analytics?
As its name indicates, Analytics is a powerful tool for tracking and analysis developed by Google. If you're wondering how it works Google Analytics and how to implement it on your website, we must tell you that it is very easy. Using a simple tracking code implemented on our website, this will allow us to monitor all the activity generated in real-time.
Among many other aspects, will help us to provide answers to the following questions:
● How are my users?
● Where and how they connect?
● Can I offer what they ask?
● Do offer a good user experience?
● What are effective and cost-efficient my investment in advertising?
● Where do you come my conversions?
● Why don't I make more?
These and many other key questions can only be solved if we are able to measure every interaction on our website. And when we have these answers, we will be able to take the right decisions while minimizing risks.
How to use Google Analytics?
Before such a quantity of information, the way it works Google Analytics is the following: this tool is responsible for organizing and grouping all of the data generated in 4 large sections. Each one of them provides summaries, tables, and graphs that will answer our questions.Are the following:
Audience. This section will allow us to get to know our users:
● Demographic aspects. Your gender, age, language, country of origin...
● Technical aspects. How to connect to our site (mobile, computer, tablet), how they found us, if you are users recurrent or new, etc
● Interests. Google does not follow only the tracking on our website, but in the whole internet. In this way, you can know the general interests of our visitors, and what type of products they buy more.
Acquisition. The importance of this report is summarized in one word: attribution. As our site grows in visits and begin to invest in advertising, where users will be a key factor. The default channel are the following:
● Direct (traffic of users who write our web url directly into your browser)
● Organic Search traffic from organic results in search engines)
● Paid Search traffic of sponsored results in search engines)
● Social (social networks)
● Referral (other sites, no search engines, and linked you to us)
● Email
This section is the most important because it will allow us to define KPIs goal and let them trace. In addition, some channels have a financial cost and that is why it is essential to be able to measure your profitability. With the section Acquisition, we will be able to see which channels are attributed to each conversion.
Behavior. This is one of the sections more interesting for that is Google Analytics. For this section we tell you which are the most visited pages on our site. And what is more important: what to navigation path, continue to our users.
This is especially relevant in e-commerce, where the navigation is sequential (for example: home > category > product > cart - > purchase), and where the number of users falls inevitably into each step of the funnel. If we can identify the sections that leave us users, we can work on your design and content to improve them (or, if possible, to dispense some).
Conversions. In this last section, we can see the different types of conversions have been performed by your users, and what are the channels with a higher rate of conversion.
So, what Analytics are only useful to me if I have an e-commerce? Absolutely not. Whether you have a blog on WordPress, a small corporate site or you're building your own online store, Analytics will be your travel companion.
And, in fact, even if you have a e-commerce, surely you will be interested trackear many other behaviors apart from the sales.
What is a conversion? The conversion lenses
Sometimes, the term "conversion" is used erroneously as a synonym of "sales". And, in effect, a sale is a conversion, but not all conversions are sales.
What we mean by "conversion" varies for each business and dependent, almost exclusively, of business decisions. The most common examples of conversions are:
● A sale
● Completion of an application form.
● A phone call
● The user to visit a certain website
● The user exceeds X time on the site
● The user to navigate by more than X pages in our site
The conversion rates are, therefore, almost infinite. But while it is technically feasible, we will be able to set any goal conversion custom. Their implementation will be more or less expensive depending on the complexity to measure the conversion.
Metrics and KPIs
If you arrived here, you ask: "What can I measure?". The answer is simple: almost everything.
But soon you will realize that you keep track of all the metrics is a process not efficient or effective. For this reason, we need to define what are our key performance indicators or Kpi's (Key Performance Indicator).
Again, the KPIs will vary depending on the type of website/company: while on an e-commerce KPIS key will be sales and the conversion rate, in a blog will be a key indicator of the visits, the page views per user and the average time that a user stays on the site.
Reports and notices
Although it is a highly recommended practice to devote the first few minutes of the day to review the results of the previous day, the Analytics features that will facilitate this task of analysis.
On the one hand, we have the custom reports, where you can specify which aspects and metrics are more relevant to us.
On the other, the alerts, which will warn us when they comply with certain situations in our site. For example, an increase in non-projected sales may indicate an error in the price of a product. An unexpected increase of visits to a page of our blog might indicate that an article has gone viral.
In both cases, we can set up an email alert.
Do you want to know more?
Now that you know how to use Google Analytics and know all of its potential, it's sure that you've been left wanting more. In Elabs Consulting we have great experience in the sector of Online Marketing and we have a team of experts in analytics that will solve all your doubts and you will be able to advise you in your project. If you liked this article, share it! and if you have any questions or we can help you with Analytics, please write to: barcelona@elabsconsulting.com
