Google Analytics is an essential digital marketing tool, however seriously underused by businesses. It enables you to measure the results of individual campaigns in real-time, compare the data to previous periods and so much more. Here are some of the reasons why you should be using Google Analytics to measure the success of your website.

Overview of All Channels

Analytics shows you data from all channels that are directing traffic to your website, including:

• Organic Search (SEO)
• Paid Search (PPC)
• Social Media
• Referrals (Backlinks)
• Direct Traffic

Being able to monitor all the platforms enables you to review what is working well in terms of advertising and what isn’t. Having all the data in one place makes it easy to compare the various channels. If you are currently spending money to your SEO, PPC or Social Media Marketing, you can monitor your ROI. Maybe you need to find out how you can maximise your social media strategy. Or your PPC campaign may not be performing as well as you thought. A look at bounce rate and time on page show you if you have to optimize your landing pages for better ROI.

Conversion Tracking

It’s all good knowing how many people have visited your website, and where they came from, but how will you know if those users are actually converting? Google Analytics enables you to set up goals to track whenever a user completes a specific action on your website. Regardless of how many users each channel is driving to your website, you have to know that this traffic is converting.

Customer Engagement

Google Analytics has many features that enables you to review how well users are interacting with your website and content. These metrics monitor various aspects of the customer journey, showing how the customer has interacted.

• Bounce rate – The percentage of visitors that leaves your website, after viewing only one page, without any interaction.
• Pages/Session – The average number of pages every visitor has viewed.
• Average Session Duration – The amount of time spent on the website by each visitor.
  

You can also view these stats against individual pages, giving you a better understanding to what pages are performing well, and which pages need optimizing to improve the user experience.

Device Overview

With the introduction of mobile first rankings, this section has become even more necessary. As your website now needs to be mobile friendly if you would like them to be included in rankings for relevant search results. Google Analytics lets you monitor which devices does your users use, giving you some indication as to how well your mobile website is working compared to the desktop version. If you are receiving the same amount of visitors from each platform, but less conversions on one, there may be a problem with the user experience of that version of the website.

Combining Data With Business Goals

Google Analytics data on its own can tell you a lot regarding website performance. This information can be very helpful. However, if you have no idea what you are trying to achieve, it’s just that: information. True performance tracking and improvement comes from comparing KPI’s against previously set objectives. Do you want people to get in touch? Download your white paper? We have set out a handy guide on setting business goals and how to break them apart to track performance: Digital Marketing Measurement.

Why Should I Use Google Analytics?

To summarize everything. Google Analytics lets you to track many important metrics, covering all aspects. You can monitor if your online marketing strategies are effective, onsite content, user experience and the device functionality. All these statistics show you what is working well and what isn’t. Once you already know what is wrong with your website, you can now think of a solution. Google Analytics gives you the information needed to improve your website and make it the best it can be.