According to the researches almost 30 million websites are using Google Analytics. So you have tones of data about your site but the question is how can you use that data to help grow your business?
The answer is simple, you have to use data to make informed business decisions.
All of that data on it’s own is meaningless but it will help you see what’s working well, what’s not working, and help you make important decisions for your business.
Google has built a framework to help users understand analytics – Acquisition, Behavior, Conversion.
Acquisition: How do you acquire users? How many? From where do your users come?
Behavior: How do users behave on your site?
Conversion: Do users take a desired action on the site?
It is important to take a look at the Channels section. The Channels Report can be found in Acquisition à Channels. From there you can see where their traffic is coming from and compare its performance to other marketing channels.
After that take notice of the campaign tagging. For example if you send email newsletter, in this way you can see how many visits did you get from your latest email newsletter.
Next comes the content. Keep your eyes on the most viewed content by reading the following reports Behavior – Site Content – All Pages. Which content is being viewed? Which content brings users back to your site?
What about Geolocation? It is important to consider geography and with Google Analytics you can segment by different geographic regions, all the way down to the city level. Understanding which countries or regions perform the best can help focus your attention on how to grow into new markets. Reports for Geolocation are located under Audience – Geo – Location.
Technology is also important. Today there are some many different types of devices, screen sizes, and browsers out there so it’s difficult to design and build a website that works great for all devices. Google Analytics will let you track a wide range of dimensions that describe Devices and Browsers. In standard reports, these can be found under: Audience & Technology – Browser & OS or Mobile Audience – Mobile — Overview (or devices).
For the end conclusion, we can say that analytics is a critical component to building your business. The more knowledge you have, more productive you can be in developing your brand and business.