Google Analytics 102: Understanding the Data

This is the second of two articles on Google Analytics. Read the first article here.

Data is great. It helps you understand trends and gain insights. It can help you make online marketing decisions which increase your ROI and decrease your spend. There is so much data can do, but first you need to be able to understand data and then you can derive actionable insights from it.

In Google Analytics 101, we became familiar with Google Analytics and defined some key terms which helped you become familiar with the platform. In Google Analytics 102, we will further our understanding of these key terms by defining the sections they appear in. This will help you begin to understand how to really draw insights from this data and use it to make better online marketing decisions.

• Audience: This tab tells you everything you need to know about anyone that has visited your website. It will let you know the language and location of your visitors, how many of them are visiting your site for the first time, how many are returning to your site, the average amount of time they spend on your website, the amount of pages they viewed in a visit, the browser and device they used to view your site, and a flow chart that shows the order in which most pages on your website are viewed. For example, you may notice that most visitors land on your home page, go to the blog, and then view your contact information.

• Traffic Sources: This section lets you know how people find your website, what keywords are driving traffic to your website, what sites are sending visitors to your website, and which social media channels are creating the most amount of traffic for your website.

• Content: This section will show you how each page on your website is performing, which one is getting the most views, the average amount of time spent on each page, the bounce rate for each page, and more.

• Conversions: This is perhaps the most important section in Google Analytics, but you do have to put some effort into creating it. Every website should have a goal, whether it's to get someone to submit their contact information, encourage a user to sign up for an email list, or make a direct purchase. Every website should encourage visitors to take action after visiting the site. The conversion tab allows you to determine what the goal of your website is and lets you measure it. For example, if your goal is to have visitors submit their name, email and phone number to you, then you would set the conversion as the URL the visitor sees after submitting the contact form.

All these sections help you better understand the data and decide what actions to take after receiving it. For example, if you are noticing that Google+ is sending more visitors to your website than Twitter, then you definitely want to put more effort into your Google+ account. If you notice that certain keywords which you are bidding on have a high bounce rate, that means that visitors who come to your website from the keyword leave right after landing on your page. You'd want to stop bidding on that keyword since it's not providing you with quality visitors.

At the end of the day, you want to make sure that your website is generating leads and helping your business grow. The data gathered from Google Analytics will help you make educated decisions regarding the content of your website and your online marketing campaigns.

To view the original article, visit the WebsiteBox blog.