
A Guide on How to Use Google Analytics to Track Website Traffic
A website is the heart and soul of any small business. If your website suffers, so does your business. If your website thrives, then — you guessed it — your business thrives as well! Tracking your website traffic is the best way to gauge how your site is performing. You can track website traffic through many services, one of which is Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a super user-friendly way of tracking and interpreting your website data. Read on to learn how to use Google Analytics to track your website data and generate insights!
What Is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a free platform that helps you track and analyze your website traffic. Google Analytics gathers various types of data and provides insights into how your business is performing online. You can then use these insights to see where your online presence excels and where it needs improvement.
Get to Know the Dashboard
Google Analytics is an incredibly useful tool for tracking your website’s performance and measuring success, but the interface can be perplexing if you’re unfamiliar with the components of the site. To learn how to use Google Analytics to track website traffic, you first need to understand the Dashboard.
Audience Overview
The Audience Overview displays your total website visitors and certain information about them. Here, you can view the number of sessions, bounce rate, page views, and average session duration.
Acquisition
This section of Google Analytics shows you how people are finding your website. Here, you can see how much traffic you’re getting through organic searches, social media, paid ads, and various other channels.
Behavior
Under this tab, you’ll find a more in-depth look at how users are interacting with your website, including what pages they look at for how long and where they choose to leave your site.
Conversions
If you have goals or eCommerce tracking set up, the Conversions tab will tell you if users are completing desired actions on your site (inputting their contact information, making a purchase, etc.)
Tracking Your Traffic
Once you’ve familiarized yourself with the different sections of the Google Analytics dashboard, you’ll need to know how each function helps you track your website performance and which metrics you should monitor.
Users and Sessions
Users are unique visitors to your website, and sessions are the number of website visits within a certain time frame. Visitors can account for multiple sessions if they access your site more than once in a short time. Both of these metrics can be found in the Audience Overview section.
Traffic Sources
In the Acquisition tab, you can view which channels drive traffic to your website. Understanding which channels bring in the most visitors allows you to tailor your strategies to those channels. Channels you can receive traffic from are:
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Organic Search: Users who have accessed your website through your listing via a search engine.
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Social: Users who have visited your website through social media platforms.
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Paid Search: Traffic from paid search ads, like Google ads.
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Display: Visitors who accessed your website through a display ad.
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Referral: Users who were referred to your website through another website.
Session Duration
The Session Duration section of your Behavior metrics displays how long users stay on your site. If visitors are leaving quickly, it could indicate that your website is confusing or unappealing. The percentage of viewers who leave your site after viewing only one page is called your Bounce Rate. A high bounce is also a sign that your website needs improvement to retain visitors.
Top Pages
In the Behavior metrics, you can also view your website’s most popular pages. This is a good way of gauging what content is most effective amongst your audience.
Business Goals
You can create goals in Google Analytics to track how well your website is turning visitors into customers or leads. The Goals feature shows how many people signed up for a newsletter, made a purchase, watched a video, or completed any other predetermined goals.
Utilizing Reports
You can gain deeper insights into your website traffic by monitoring reports in Google Analytics. Check Real-Time Reports to see live data of visitors currently on your site. Audience Reports provide insights about user demographics, interests, how and where they accessed your site, and more.
Using The Data to Your Advantage
Now that you understand the data that Google Analytics provides, it’s time to use it to see what’s working on your website and what could use improvement. For example, if you’re getting the most traffic from social media, you can lean into that and focus more on your social media presence. If your bounce rate is high and your session durations low, it’s time to consider reworking your site’s content and design.
We Can Improve Your Metrics
Interpreting your website data is easy, but taking action to make improvements can be difficult and time-consuming. If you’ve got too much on your plate to monitor your website traffic and make updates, contact Red Egg for help. Our expert web developers will take all of your website data into account and use it to make your site the best that it can be!