INTRODUCTION
Today, successful websites need to have not only useful content but also a solid understanding of their audience. If a website has first-class content but no notion of its performance–for example is the content bringing you leads–that’s missing half of the battle.
Google Analytics, a tool that helps analyze web traffic, can answer these questions and guide you to improve your site based on the results. According to Built With, more than 27 million websites currently use the platform to track usage metrics.
Here are the top five statistics to use in Google Analytics.
Goal Conversion
Goals allow you to track specific user interactions on your site and more effectively measure metrics such as the number of downloads of your brochure. Once the visitor has performed a certain action or a series of actions, Google Analytics records that as a successful conversion.
For example, you can use goal tracking to see whether your Facebook ads or your Google ads are bringing in more sales to your website.
To set up a goal, in the left panel, click Admin > New Goal button. Enter in a description and the details of your goal and then select one of the four different goal types (destination, duration, pages/screens per session or event). Depending on the goal you choose, follow the prompts to finish the setup.
Keywords
Is your site optimized correctly so that it will appear in search engine results for your desired keywords? To find out, click on Acquisition > Campaigns > Organic Keywords. This will provide a list of the search terms your visitors are using to find your website.
It’s important that people are using keywords related to your products or services in search engines to find your website. If not, that means those keywords aren’t optimized or used correctly on your website.
Bounce Rate
Under Behavior > Site Content > All Pages, you can find Bounce Rate. Bounce rate is measured if a website visitor views one page then leaves. It’s a general sign of user engagement and the state of content quality. As a rule of thumb, keep your bounce rate as low as possible, usually 50 percent or lower. If it begins to increase, something is causing your visitors to leave quickly (e.g. content isn’t relevant, slow page loads, etc.).
Behavior Flow
Behavior Flow (Behavior > Behavior Flow) follows the journey that visitors go through when they arrive at your site, page by page. This flowchart shows you how many hits your pages are receiving, how many users exit at each page and the overall route they take. Knowing the most common path helps you prioritize changes to your website.
To view how users navigate from a specific page, under Behavior Flow, click the gear icon next to the landing page drop down. Click on “add an item link” and in the expression field enter the URL of the specific page, then click apply.
Traffic Source
Check the source of your website’s traffic (Acquisition > Overview) to learn how visitors are coming to your site. (In-bound links to your website helps with your search engine rankings.) The types of traffic sources are:
- Organic – Google or other search engines
- Referral – A link on another website that leads to yours
- Social – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
- Paid search – Someone clicks on your Google Ad
- Email traffic – Visitor from an email marketing campaign
- Direct traffic – Visitor that either types your website URL in the browser address bar or clicks on a saved bookmark that leads to your website