When your business has a website, you want to know that the message is right and that you’re reaching the right audience.

This is where Google Analytics comes in. Tracking your website’s online performance allows you to make informed decisions on changes and improvements to your site.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool used to track website traffic. It provides you with in-depth reports that allow you to understand your website’s performance and find the best ways to drive traffic to your site.

Google Analytics data includes the number of visitors, bounce rates, and your audience’s demographics. It’s a great way to learn more about your visitors, where they came from, where they go on your site, and how long they stay there.

Google Analytics Reports

When you first log into your Google Analytics, the reports can seem overwhelming. There is so much data. But data is a good thing. It will help you determine if your site’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is correct. It will tell you the age and location of your visitors, and so much more. All this data can be used to optimize your website and have it work better for you.

Take time every month to review this data and make corrections to your website or SEO. If you’re a brick-and-mortar shop in Rochester that targets seniors and most of your website visitors are millennials in the mid-West, you need to revisit your SEO or communication tone.

Know Where Your Visitors Come From

Knowing where your site visitors are coming from is just as important as knowing what kind of visitors you’re attracting. The Acquisition report breaks down your site traffic b source, allowing you to see the platforms that your site is performing best on and which areas you need to improve.

There are several traffic sources that Google Analytics tracks for you.

· Direct traffic visitors are someone who typed your domain name into their browser.

· Email traffic visitors are those who clicked on a link in one of your email marketing campaign emails.

· Organic traffic visitors came to your site after finding you in search results.

· Social traffic visitors came to your site from your social sites.

· Referral traffic visitors are those who found your site from a backlink from another site.

· Paid Search traffic visitors came to your site from a paid Google or other search platform ad.

Behavior Report

This report tells you how each page of your site is performing. The report tells you how much traffic each page receives and the average time visitors spend on it.

Some pages will have more time spent on them. This could be your blog page or your services or products page.

The data in this report will help you determine which pages are not performing well. You can then reassess your site and make updates to improve your visitors’ experience.

Are you ready to set up Google Analytics to see how well your website is performing?