3 Ways Google Analytics Can Improve your Website

By: Blakely Fraasch, Content Curator Intern

Successful entrepreneurs understand their target market and use that knowledge to their advantage. Using products like Google Analytics helps entrepreneurs to understand the behaviors of their target audience, and to decide what future content and products will interest them. A free data metric tracking site, Google Analytics is vital to venture success by helping users identify and track their audience, website traffic, and brand awareness based off their website and social media posts. Google Analytics has already helped track data metrics on over 40 million websites! Whether your venture is about building eco-friendly homes or starting your own bakery, Google Analytics can empower social entrepreneurs and arm them with data to better reach their target customers. Check out these three tips on how to use Google Analytics data metrics tracking to step up your website game!

Before You Start: Set Objectives

When engaging in data analytics, it is crucial to set objectives. Project where your venture should be by next quarter and identify actionable and realistic steps to achieve these projections. If you don’t have a strategy, validated customer segment, and clear target market, leveraging analytics will not be effective.

1. Consider the demographics of your target market and in what areas your venture’s target market should expand. Who are your target customers? Where are your target customers? How have they traditionally interacted with you in the past?

2. Decide which data metrics will be most beneficial in measuring how your website captures the attention of your target market.

3. Determine how you want to track viewer engagement. Google Analytics offers a number of useful metrics that assist users in tracking audience engagement and detailing problem areas. After gearing your posts toward your chosen target audience, analytics will measure whether you’re on the right track or if you should re-evaluate your objectives and marketing efforts.

1. Utilize the Audience Reports Section

Through Google Analytics data tracking, you could realize your venture has an audience you never knew about. Once you solidify the demographics of your venture’s target audience, it will be easier to dictate what type of content will meet their needs and catch their attention.

Use Audience Report Data Metrics to find High-Value Viewers:

Age & Gender Metrics:
– Age metrics separate your viewers into specific age groups; i.e. 18-24, 24-34, 64+, etc.
– Gender Metrics separate viewers into male vs. female.
– Help to highlight exactly what ages and gender your website is reaching and who views your website most. For example, if you have younger female viewers, you can channel more energy towards Pinterest or other visual social media platforms.

Interest Overview:
– Highlights the interests of your viewers based on their previous site data and what other sites and interests they may have.
– Some examples of interests include Arts & Entertainment, Finance, Sports, etc.
– The interests get as specific as stating “Finance/Business Finance Stock Reports” or “Art & Entertainment/Films/New Releases”.

Use these reports to identify your target market(s) and see which segmented populations are your High-Value Users (those who bring in the most views). Utilize the Gender, Age, and Interest report information to your advantage when marketing your venture. Half the battle of marketing to your audience is simply knowing who your viewers are and what interests them.

2. Understand Google Analytics Goals

Google Analytics Goals help users track visitor actions like page views, screens/pages per visit, view duration, and the bounce rate. Understanding these data metrics is pivotal to knowing how to shape future posts, pages, and campaigns.

Using Google “Goals” to your advantage:
• Page Views: Total number of views a page has shows admin which pages and content are most popular to their viewers.
– Create “thought buckets” to plan diverse content that is relevant to what your viewers enjoy reading/looking at/purchasing.
– Plan future posts according to thought buckets to establish your brand as an authority on those topics.

• View Duration: Average amount of time viewers spent on a single page.
– Shows the attention span of viewers, helping you decide word counts and specific formats to engage your viewers and convey information more concisely.

• Bounce Rate: The percentage of single-page visits in which the viewer left before visiting any other pages on the site.
– Having a high bounce rate is not a good sign, and could mean your website has usability issues, or a poor design layout.
– Bounce rate helps admin understand how easy their website is to navigate or if the landing page’s information should be adjusted.
– For more bounce rate advice and details check out Google’s Analytics Tips.

3. Take Advantage of Google Analytics Content Reports

The content report shows users what pages their viewers enter on and which pages they leave from. This indicates which pages are successful at gaining attention from viewers and which pages may not be engaging viewers as effectively as they could.

Content Pages Data Metrics:
• Exits: Number of times a viewer exited from a specific page.
– Shows users what pages their viewers lose interest in.
– Could indicate that page has non-useful information or a technical problem.

• % Exits: Highlights the number of exits over total page views.
– The page with the highest % Exits is where viewers exit most frequently.
– Indicates a specific issue within that page, which could be content the viewers dislike, technical problems, and/or poor layout design.

• Landing Pages: Pages where viewers first enter the website.
– Indicates which pages gather the attention of viewers from other sites, search engines, etc.
– Helps to understand which posts, campaigns, or products attract the attention of consumers.
– Can provide an idea of what content to add to your website to retain more viewers.

Without Google Analytics, content curation is a shot in the dark. Rather than wasting time posting random content, intentionally map out your strategy, target audience, and mode of gaining maximum traction. Measuring digital impact not only allows entrepreneurs to benchmark their growth from one year to the next, but gives you the exact equation for success. Don’t be afraid of the numbers – let them tell the story of how your business went from an idea to a profitable and popular social venture.

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>>“3 Ways to Build an Impact-Driven Entrepreneurial Ecosystem”

>>“How to Build an Engaging Landing Page”

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