Google Analytics (GA) is an outstanding analytics platform that gives insight into how people find and use your website. According to Ellen Smolko of Foresight Performance “Google Analytics is probably the best free tool available for helping you decide how to convert your visitors to leads or even sales and improve the quality of your Calls to Action (CTAs).” Anyone with a website should have GA, but if you advertise digitally, it is a must. The value of Google Analytics is not just for advertising, it helps smart marketers make informed decisions on many levels.
Demographics
We often talk about who our ideal client is, or what they look like. But is that who visits our website? Google Analytics breaks out site visitors by age cells as well as by gender. Not only do you see who visited your site but how they performed. How long they visited, how many pages and if they converted. This information may affect how you market going forward.
Audience Behaviors
There are more detailed audience behaviors to be studied. GA provides a map of the customers journey through your website. Not only do you learn what page they landed on when they came to your site but what page they exited from. GA shows you how much time they spent on each page. If you see a high exit rate from a page it might be because the page loads slowly. (GA gives you page load speeds as well) If the page loads well, has a high exit percentage, and low time on page, more likely there is a content issue. Good content holds the reader.
Audience Interests
Knowing the interests of visitors to your website will help you target your advertising and inform how you talk to prospective customers. Valuable insight you can find in GA. A gardening store that knows many of its visitors are also interested in fashion should work their messaging accordingly. “Targeting the placement and wording of your Calls To Action to match your visitors’ behavior can lead to increased lead generation or sales” says Smolko.
Google Analytics is useful because it collects all of your marketing data in one place. You can see how paid search performs next to organic and social media. If you use unique url’s for traditional advertising or you track phone calls that can be included. Results can be reviewed by time of day or day of the week. Just about any way you want to examine information GA can do it. If you haven’t already done so, install GA today. It will improve your advertising and marketing decisions.
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