What Is Google Analytics, And How Can It Help You In Your Online Business?

If you have an online business, you’ve probably heard of Google Analytics at some point. It is a free and handy tool to obtain information about traffic and user behavior on your website. In this article, we will explain what Google Analytics is, why it is essential for your business, and how you can start using it.

Google Analytics is a web analytics tool that allows website owners to obtain detailed information about traffic and visitor behavior. It was launched in November 2005 by Google and has since become one of the most popular web analytics tools in the world.

It works by placing a tracking code on your website that collects information such as the number of visitors, the pages they visit, the duration of visits, and the source of traffic, including information about the characteristics of the users who visit your website. (age range, sex, interests…)

Google Analytics allows you to know your digital customers in-depth, in the same way that you can know the customers of a physical business. Tools like Google Analytics are our eyes in an online world, as they help us better understand our customers, know who they are, where they come from, what interests them, how they interact with our online business, and. We can even analyze our marketing strategy, in case we have it. All of this will help us make data-driven decisions to improve our website, understand how to improve user experience, and increase sales.

What Data Can Google Analytics Measure?

Google Analytics provides a wide range of data and statistics called metrics or indicators that help you understand how users interact with your website.

These metrics are divided into two categories: user metrics and session metrics. User metrics measure the number of users who visit a website in a given period, while session metrics measure user behavior during a particular visit.

Some of the data you can obtain with Google Analytics are:

Visits and unique users: Visits refer to the total number of times your website has been accessed, while unique users refer to the total number of different visitors who have accessed your website.
Bounce Rate: Bounce rate refers to the number of visits in which the user has left your website after viewing a single page. That is, they are usually users who do not interact with your website.
Time on site and pages per session: Time on site refers to the average time users spend on your website, while pages per session refer to the average number of pages viewed per visit.
Traffic Sources (Organic, Direct, Referral, Paid): Traffic sources refer to how users reach your website. They can be, among others, organic (search from search engines, such as Google), direct (direct access to the website; they are users who already know the page), reference (access from another website that includes a link to your page ) or paid (advertising).
Keywords and Search Queries: Keywords and search queries refer to the keywords that users have used to find your website on search engines.
Conversions and goals: Conversions and goals refer to the actions that users take on your website, such as filling out a form or making a purchase.

All these metrics can be filtered according to your needs. In addition, there are segments, a powerful tool within Google Analytics that allows you to see data only for certain types of users or behaviors to be able to analyse what things they have in common and extract knowledge.

Google Analytics Reporting Structure

Google Analytics can offer large amounts of information that is presented in an orderly manner through reports. These reports are organized into four main sections:

Audience Report: This section provides information about website visitors: number of users, visits, page views, average time on site, bounce rate, devices used, geographic location of users, and other demographic and social information.

This report allows us to understand our users better and adjust our strategy accordingly. For example, if the majority of our users access the site from mobile devices, we should ensure that the site is mobile-optimized and easy to navigate on small screens.

Purchase Report: In this report, you can analyze the traffic sources that bring visitors to the website. The primary traffic sources are organic traffic (unpaid search results), direct traffic (when a user directly types the URL into the browser), referral traffic (when users come to the website from another website), paid traffic (pay-per-click ads), and social media traffic.

This report is beneficial for identifying which marketing channels are performing best and should be adjusted or eliminated. For example, if we find that the majority of our traffic comes from organic searches, we should focus our efforts on improving our SEO strategy.

Behavior Report: This report shows how visitors interact with the website. Here, you can find information about the most visited pages, the duration of the session, the main pages that users enter or leave, how they navigate between pages, and more.

This report allows us to identify the pages on the site that are performing best and those that we should improve. For example, if we find that a specific page has a very high exit rate, we should analyze the content and layout of the page to see how we can improve the user experience.

Conversions report: This report shows how website visitors are engaging with your site’s goals and conversions. Goals can be any action you want the user to take, such as filling out a form, making a purchase, or downloading a file. In this report, you can see how many users completed each objective and what the conversion rate was. This report is beneficial for identifying which areas of the site are performing best and should be optimized to increase conversions.

Tips For Analyzing Indicators In Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a fantastic and handy tool for any business. Still, it is so extensive and offers so much information that it can overwhelm someone who doesn’t know what to do with it.

Below, we offer you some tips so that you can carry out a practical analysis of the indicators:

Contextualize the data. It is essential to contextualize the data in order to understand its meaning. For example, if the number of visits to a website has increased, you need to know why this is due. Has a marketing campaign been launched? Has new content been published on the website? Has your position in search results improved? Contextualizing data helps understand long-term patterns and trends.

Compare with previous periods. A helpful way to contextualize data is to compare it to previous periods. For example, if the number of visits has increased in the last month, is that increase consistent with the increase in previous months or with the same month last year? Has there been any significant change that explains the increase? Is our data getting better, getting worse, or is it stable?

Identify patterns and trends. Identifying long-term patterns and trends can help you better understand website user behaviour. For example, if most users leave the website after visiting just one page, this could indicate a problem with the user experience or the content of the website.

Use segments and filters. Google Analytics allows you to create segments and filters to analyse specific groups of users or data. For example, a segment can be created to analyze the behavior of users who have completed a particular goal, users who purchase a certain product, or those who come from a specific traffic source or campaign. Filters can be used to remove non-relevant data, such as internal website traffic.

Google Analytics is a free but potent tool for anyone who has an online business. It allows you to obtain valuable information about the traffic and user behavior on your website, which will help you make informed decisions about the design and content of your site.

If you are not already using Google Analytics on your website, you should start doing so as soon as possible. The setup is simple, and the tool is free.

Also Read: When And Why Is A CRM Used?