What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is integral for Digital Marketing

If you have a website and you don't have Google Analytics installed, then I'm sorry to say, you're not really taking your digital marketing seriously. As one of our favourite quotes from Peter Drucker states, "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it". Similarly, you can't improve your digital marketing if you don't measure it and have clear goals you want to achieve. Google Analytics is the bare minimum you need to track what is happening on your website. And the best bit? It's free to use.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Google Analytics & Search Console Explained for Beginners

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0:00 Do you track analytics on your website? Our experience shows that most small business owners don't actually have—they have a website, but they have no way of knowing what's happening on that website.

0:08 So, with two main ways to track a website, you would have heard, you possibly would have heard, **Google Analytics**. So, Google Analytics is a free tool put out by Google.

0:15 You put a bit of code on the website and it will tell you everything that happens when someone comes to your website: it'll let you know how many came on, how many bounced off, how many pages they clicked at, whether they filled in a web form, whether they made a call if you put call tracking or something like that, do they click on certain buttons, all that sort of stuff.

0:32 So, where did they come from, what their demographic is, all those sorts of things. So, it's a very, very powerful thing, and the best part is it's free.

0:40 So, if you don't have access to Google Analytics, I fully suggest you look at getting that attached to your website.

0:46 The other platform that we use quite a lot is **Google Search Console**—yet again another free platform by Google.

0:53 The difference between Search Analytics and Google Analytics—Search Console, I should say—is Search Console basically shows what's happened with your website on Google.

1:03 So whereas Google Analytics will show you what happens when someone clicks on your website, how they got there, and what they did once they got to your website, Search Console is the other side of it.

1:11 So it'll show how many times your website was shown by Google, what the keywords were that it got shown, how many times people clicked through to your website, whereabouts you ranked.

1:20 So, it's, and it'll also give you how your website is showing **Core Web Vitals**.

1:25 Search Console is the other side of it, so it'll show how many times your website was shown by Google, what the keywords were that it got shown, how many times people clicked through to your website, whereabouts you ranked.

1:35 So, basically, how fast your website is loading and how well it is loading for user experience.

1:41 It'll let you know if there's any issues with your website that Google's found. It'll let you know what pages have been indexed by Google and all that sort of information.

1:49 So, once again, once you've got Google Analytics, you can actually set up your Search Console quite straightforward, or you can just have Search Console with a bit of script you put on there.

1:58 So, two areas of analytics that you really, really should have; if you haven't got them, I fully recommend you have a go putting on, look up Google Analytics and Search Console, or talk to your web guy and get them to put it on there and give you access to it.

2:09 Hope it all makes sense and look forward to speaking to you soon.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics (GA) is a free program from Google that tracks how a website visitor gets to your website and what they do when they get there. All you need to do is set up an account and then add some tracking code to your website. If you're not comfortable finding your way around your website, you can always pass the code onto your web designer and ask them to add it. Even with a set up cost from your web designer, the longer term advantages will more than offset them.

Once you have GA installed, you can start to see what is happening on your site. Just a few of things you can see are:

How many people visited your website in the last month
Where in the country did they come from
How did they get to your website (search, yellow pages, adwords, Facebook etc)
Were they on a phone, tablet or desktop computer (even down to the brand)
Have they been to your website before
Did they stay on your site for long and look at multiple pages or just leave
What page did they come into your website and what are the most popular pages

There are a lot more you can find out about your website, but these are the main ones.

Conversions Tracking on Google Analytics

Knowing how someone gets to your website and what they do when they get there is great, but what about whether they do what you want them to do. Isn't a large part of digital marketing analytics knowing how many sales, webforms and phone calls your website generates? This is where setting up goals in GA comes in.

Setting up a goal to track whenever a webform is filled in is relatively straight forward. Similarly, Google Analytics already has an eCommerce section that can easily be set up to track the amount of sales made on your website. Important: Phone call tracking requires a third party platform to acurately track when phone calls have been made.

Setting up these Goals allows you to easily see what parts of your web marketing is converting. This includes what pages on your website, what traffic sources and screen types to name a few.

Landing page goals conversion

So if you haven't got Google Analytics set up on your website, get onto it. If you're using an SEO company and they haven't given you access to your Google Analytics, ask them for it. It doesn't matter whether you handle the digital marketing for your business or you outsource it, you should always be familiar with how your website is going.

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