One thing that always amazes me is that clients never take the time to understand the statistics that Google Analytics hands them on a plate – and all for free!
I do not recall in all my time consulting having a client that really used Google Analytics to the full. Sure, when they first set up the website or blog they or the webmaster will have installed Google Analytics. Google Analytics then proceeds to gather all this valuable information in the background that no one every looks at. And no doubt there are gems of wisdom contained in amongst the statistics that would enable the business owner or marketing team to think about, tweak or revolutionise their marketing and could quite literally transform the business.
I think the problem is that when you first open Google Analytics the screen is full of stats and this can be most daunting to non ‘geeks’. I have seen this for myself once when I set up Google Analytics for a clients so that they could see the website stats for the first time, being a bit of a geek I was excited as I explored visitor activity on the site and was able to gain an understanding of how people were using the site. At the same time I could see my clients eyes had glazed over and he had lost interest and no doubt he was thinking why I was using his paid time to look at stats – that is until a month later he needed a piece of key information and then he was straight on the phone asking me to find the answer -which I was able to do in just a couple of minutes – because I had set up Google Analytics correctly – and had spent enough time to understand the basics of how his site was set up.
Often the gold is hidden in the stats. It’s not glamours trawling through stats and using Google Analytics reports to find out what is working, and what is not so that you can optimise your site. But blimey when you get it right it brings in the results – increased sales, reduced advertising costs and a host of other key metrics can be positively influenced -once you understand the stats.
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So how do you get started with Google Analytics. First ensure you have the Google Analytics tracking code installed correctly. Then just focus on the simple stuff until you begin to feel confident with the interface. For instance start by tracking the counts for your daily visitors -investigate where they are geographically, what sources led them to your site, what pages they visited. As you start to familiarise yourself with the layout and see the power of knowing the numbers you will find yourself starting to ask questions and exploring the data more fully. Then as marketing issues arise you will begin to use Analytics as a source of information and insight – rather than blindly trying the latest fashionable marketing trick and hoping it works you can measure, benchmark and improve. Keep and improve the marketing that works and discard quickly the marketing that does not work and loses money.
But you must be very careful – it can be addictive, checking the stats much to regularly to see if the latest email campaign or Adwords campaign is having the desired effect on visitors can become time consuming and earn you the informal job title as the ‘resident geek’.
Here is an interesting article that I found that may spark of you interest in Google Analytics.
http://sideincomeblogging.com/analytics-for-your-blog-audience-overview/
Cheers
Julian
