Using Google Analytics to Improve your Website Image

Google Analytics is one of the most popular web analytics tools out there and for good reason. Offering traffic analysis and analytics on key data for free, the platform can help with your company’s marketing initiatives and strategy.

With Google Analytics, it is possible to track how a visitor came across your site, including from offline or internet of things sources, as well as how long visitors stayed, and what kind of keywords or content kept them there. However, the breadth of information available can be overwhelming if you do have never used Google Analytics before and you don’t know which info is important to you and your site.

So, we have put together an easy guide to using Google Analytics to improve your website, focusing on the key, valuable information that you can derive from this tool…

What is your audience searching for

Google Analytics clearly displays the keywords that your audience is entering into search engines. It shows you the most popular keywords that draw people to your website and based on this information, you or your marketing team can direct content creation to cater to the most popular and relevant keywords. You must analyse the keywords and ask yourself: “What terms are people searching for when they are looking for my site?” and “Do I want to be found for those words?” With these questions in mind, it might then be time to review and change up your website content.

Enable Google Search Console!

A lot of website owners miss out on rich organic search traffic data because they do not enable Search Console. Make sure you enable this data to flow into Google Analytics. Once enabled, you gain access to some really, really valuable data such as keyword performance and what users see in Google search results before they decide to click to your site.

Determine your most valuable pages

Google Analytics can show you what pages get the most hits in a given period of time. It is then up to you to ensure the pages that perform the best are fully optimised. Maybe you want to convert visitors to email subscribers? Then insert an email capture form on the pages with the most views. Whatever your end-goal, by highlighting the best performing pages on your site, you can effectively optimise these pages to meet your targets.

Make sure you are constantly identifying the pages that already have traffic, conversions or results, and then you can see what content is working and learn to create more of that across your website.

Find the content driving traffic away & analyse bounce rates

Along with identifying your best content, Google Analytics can also help you and your marketing team to discover what content is not performing as it should. By going to ‘exit pages’ (which can found under ‘behaviour -> ‘site content’), you can see the pages users exit the site on and then make amendments to curb this.

You also need to consider your bounce rate. If there is a large percentage of visitors navigating away after viewing only one page, then there could be a problem. You need to find the solution –  this could mean optimising those pages with better call-to-actions or creating more engaging content.

What’s grabbing attention?

With Google Analytics you can gain really good insights into how long consumers are on a single page. Using this, you can work out what users are reading, what is grabbing their attention and what content is working. You can then leverage the most attention-grabbing pages and content into sales conversions! Make sure you are reviewing traffic levels and traffic sources with the length of time that a consumer is on a page  so that you can maximise your website conversions.

Discover sources of traffic

You need to know where traffic is actually coming from and whether it’s paid or organic. This is a huge insight into the future marketing plans for clients.  This analysis can show you which ad buys are driving traffic to the website, what organic efforts are working and how effective your social media is.

Social media performance

Google Analytics allows users to filter social media visits from other traffic sources. This feature will show the amount of traffic to your site from your various social media accounts, what social media account drives the largest quantity of traffic and what shared links attracted the most visitors.

Don’t forget Desktop vs Mobile!

Now more than ever before, websites have to be fully optimised for speed and responsiveness on mobile. Mobile web browsing is truly taking over. Google Analytics provides important data on whether your web traffic is coming from desktop or mobile devices. So, if you have a high bounce rate on mobile, you know you need to fix that!

And be on the look-out for potential new markets

Take a look at the geographic breakdown of what traffic does when it gets to your site so that you can analyse new potential markets. Look at age and gender too. It’s good to keep an eye on what your audience looks like so that you can see who is interested in your website. Don’t always assume that your idea of your target customer is who actually ends up visiting. Keep informed and keep analysing all the time.

 

Using Google Analytics correctly gives you a competitive edge as a business. Make sure you are monitoring this all the time and updating your website appropriately based on your findings. This way you can improve your website by creating something that you know your visitors will engage with and that is more likely to create conversions.

If your company requires help understanding how your website is performing please Contact Us to discuss how we can help you, on Dungannon 028 3754 9025 or Belfast 028 9002 5050.