Google analytics are statistics for your website, that can cover basic things like, how many people are visiting your site and what pages they’re seeing, to more complex things like if visitors are following sales funnels you’ve set up.
For today, I’ll just give you a general overview why even just knowing the basics can drastically improve how you market on your website. Overall, a good way to think about Google analytics is that they track concrete numbers, numbers you can improve to get you more of the results you want. A quick sampling of what’s in a report:
- How people get to your site – google search, email links, social sites (like Facebook, Pinterest, etc.)
- What page people first enter your site on (No, it’s not always your home page!)
- How many first-time and repeat visitors you have
- What pages they look at and for how long they look at them
- Words and phrases they use to find your site
Let’s dig a little deeper into just a few of these.
What page(s) are people typically landing on?
If you know how people find your website online – you can put appropriate calls to action for them on those pages.
Example: let’s say most google searchers get to your site end up on a blog post.
On each of your blog posts, you can then include what you want them you do, like sign up for your email list. Then next month, you can see if you’ve snagged some more email subscribers from those pages, and if not, you can try a different or additional tactic. Then you basically repeat the process, until you start getting the results you’re after.
Lead your viewer down the yellow-brick road.
Using your statistics, you can start to really figure out how to direct people. So, let’s say from your home page you want people to look at your services page and from there you want them to email you about services you offer. Google analytics will tell you:
1. If people are making it to your services page,
2. How many people of those people make it to your contact page and then you can figure out how many of them email you (in combination with the emails you have received).
Now, you have the information you need to start making small changes to actually get people to do what you want them to do on your website and then you recheck in a month to see what your results have been. Again, you repeat until you get what you’re after.
Become a power-user of those keywords.
Since Google gives you a run down of what words and phrases people are entering when they find your site you can you have the power to decide which ones to keep using and which ones to stop using.
Certain keywords might be bringing people you really don’t want on your site, like people that con’t afford to pay you or people who are just DIYers who would never buy from you… so you can use less of those words. But, you may also see that with other keywords, those people are spending a lot of time on your site and either contacting you or signing up for your email list – so those are type of words that you want to keep using. You can take this even further by using the Google Adwords Keyword Planner.
The caveats
Pretty please, don’t read this, set up google analytics and then make more than one or two on your site next month! If you get all gun-ho and make a bunch of changes at once, you’ll have absolutely no idea what’s making any difference. So, stick with one or two changes – leave it for a month, check the results and then make one or two more changes and so on. You’re in this for the long haul. A major change is less sustainable than small incremental changes.
Keywords and Search engine optimization are, seriously, not as cool as you think they are. When was the last time you googled something, found and read blog post – then signed up for their email list? While it definitely happens, it’s not easy to convert complete strangers. The good leads come when people’s friends recommend your blog on social media, or when people who read your twitter feed (or see your pinterest pins) think – “Man – this guy/gal is awesome!” – and then click the link to your site.
And that’s your quick I just gave you a tiny glimpse into why you’d want to use Google analytics on your site, hopefully I’ve inspired you to give it a go.
If you’d like the sound of this, but really want someone else to do it for you, check out my WordPress maintenance packages.
Thanks! 🙂
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