Google Analytics Insights
What is Google Analytics?
During the research stage of your marketing campaign, Google Analytics can be used for analysing your existing customers behaviour to identify how to improve your website.
This includes understanding:
- Which marketing campaigns are driving traffic to your website.
- How potential customers behave when visiting your website.
- How seasonality is affecting traffic across the site.
Understanding the answers to these questions begins to paint a picture of what pieces of your marketing need to be improved on-site, allowing you to drive forward with creating a website strategy.
Why do I need Google Analytics?
Google Analytics provides you with a method for tracking the success of the changes you make across your website. During your website strategy you will have considered how to tailor your pages to specific audiences, through tone of voice, imagery and the information you provide. In addition to considering what people are searching for through Google, using the Google Keyword Planner tool, you will have considered the information your audience want to see when making a decision.
However, we need to ensure this is working and driving people closer to purchase. Google Analytics will provide you with information on:
- How long a visitor is spending on your site.
- What pages they’re spending their time on.
- Where they’re entering from and exiting the page to.
It’ll also provide more detailed information on:
- What marketing campaigns they’re visiting your site from.
- Their journey across the website, so you can pinpoint which pieces of your marketing need to be improved.
- The number of conversions completed (with a value attached if you desire).
What benefits will my business see from using Google Analytics?
Successfully utilising the basic and more advanced features of Google Analytics will provide you with an accountable method of analysing if your marketing is performing as you would hope and even if it is already, how this could be further improved.
Without utilising this wonderful tool, your marketing becomes a game of guessing what is and what isn’t working. It’s surprising when implementing Google Analytics to an existing website, the findings you can make to further increase your profitability. Without the tool, there may be many untapped areas for growth you aren’t aware of.
That’s not to say analytics is the be-all and end-all. It isn’t and people are still an important component to your marketing analysis. However, without this data to begin with, we can’t understand where people are reacting positively to your campaign and where they aren’t.
Take a second hand car dealership, they may find customers are entering their website, visiting a number of their models but when moving to the warranty section of the site, are dropping off. Following the trail of traffic, could suggest either:
- The warranties page has a user experience (UX) issue and is difficult for customers to find information.
- Or alternatively, the warranty on offer isn’t enticing enough versus local competitors.
The only way to really get to the route of the issue, is to test different warranty offers in-store to see which are more favourable, whilst fixing any design elements on the site that would make it easier for the users to find their information.
Once the more favourable warranty is published online and the design of the website amended, Google Analytics can monitor any improvements in conversion rate.
How do I use Google Analytics?
First of all, we need to make sure Google Analytics is installed on your site. Login at this address to enter the tool.
If analytics isn’t already installed, Google provides instructions to setting Google Analytics up.
Now Analytics is setup and you’re logged in, begin by analysing how your website is performing:
- Under Audience (in the left navigation menu), Overview, how is your website performing? How many people are visiting your site, how long are they spending there and what percentage of these users are new or returning traffic?
- Under Behaviour, Site Content, All Pages, begin to understand which pages on your site are working effectively to engage potential customers, through looking at the number of visitors to a page, the average time spent on a page and the bounce rate (the number of people who left the site without visiting another page).
- Conversions can be setup to understand which marketing channels and pages are converting customers effectively.
We understand setting up and using Google Analytics can be daunting to begin with. If you would like us to configure the tool and/ or show you how your existing website is performing free of charge, along with producing some recommendations to improve your sales and lead generation, get in touch here.
What else do I need to know?
Google Analytics is an invaluable tool but it should never be analysed in isolation from the rest of your marketing campaign. For example, if a particular page isn’t converting very well but the rest of the site is, is there something in the marketplace that is creating an issue with this particular product or service, making it harder to sell? If so, you may need to work hard to adapt your offering. If not, then it may be the design of the page that is causing a problem.
Likewise, if lots of people are bouncing off your site after visiting a page, it suggests they aren’t finding solutions to their problems. Go back and talk with your potential customers, either during a sales call or testing a product in-store, to identify what questions you’re not answering effectively or better still, a USP neither yourself or the competition have identified that would drive customers to stay and explore more of the site.
At Need to Know Marketing we love providing information for SME’s so they can grow. We also understand this work can be time consuming and difficult to begin with. To assist you, we provide a free of charge one hour consultation, where we have an open discussion about your business objectives and what you’re looking to achieve.
Following the consultation we will provide you with a marketing strategy, advising how we recommend meeting your business objectives through marketing. If you are interested in knowing the cost of our services, you can use our calculator as a guide.
“Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language.”
Walt Disney knew telling a story is always always easier with pictures. It crosses all barriers. The best story tellers are always the best at engaging their audience.